


Dream Merchant

by brokenbeauty



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Splash Free, Dreams and Nightmares, M/M, Magic, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Self-cest, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-05-30 07:09:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6413959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenbeauty/pseuds/brokenbeauty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe, sometimes what you need is just a break from it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> DA-DUNNNN *flourish of cornets* so so so Ang is here to shove another story in y'all's faces. Honestly, this is probably the first, last and only story in which I thought of the title before the actual story. Like I saw the name 'Dream Merchant' on my dad's perfume bottle, and was like FUCK I HAVE TO MAKE THIS A THING. So heeeeere we are. 
> 
> Okay, now, in all seriousness, this is a pretty dark story. Some of the chapters are pretty triggering, and Rin's self-hatred is a pretty much constant theme through the story. So please, if this is an issue, exit this page and read some morning-after-love-confession fluff. 
> 
> Okay? Okay. LEGGO.
> 
> (P.S. I need, like really really need a beta. So if anyone's willing to throw themselves to the wolves, e-mail me? at zebkhalid100@yahoo.com)

Darkness. It was black as pitch. 

And pain. It hurt.

 

Rin _hurt._ Not his head or leg or anything tangible, but shocks and waves of red-hot intensity that broke over him like a fever. 

 

Dazed still, his eyes fluttered open. A mistake, if his skewed perception could be trusted at all. The after-effects of the uppers that had hazed his world, all corners and too-sharp angles, into a soothing, kaleidoscopic blur, had lent a cracking electricity to his inert, limp limbs; had found him slumped in here.

 

 _Here_ not implying that Rin had _any goddamned idea_ where he was. All his fogged senses were registering was the scrape of something harsh against his cheek, something— tiny pebbles?— biting into his thigh, the muted thump of bass from a nearby nightclub. 

 

" _Shit…,"_ he cursed under his breath as his throbbing head screamed in protest of his cautious movement away from the wall. From what he could ascertain, he was in a dead-end alley. One adjoining the nameless, sleazy club he'd chosen to throw himself into that night, if the obscene graffiti scrawled out all over that crumbling masonry, and the dubious nature of the trash littering it— was that _puke_ in the corner?— were any giveaway. 

 

 _And it was throwing himself away, all right._ Rin's hands did a quick once-over of his body, checking for any serious damage he'd taken. _Though,_ as he often wondered, _why did he even bother?_ Back when he'd actually _read,_ back when he hadn't known that there were easier ways to escape than to open a book, he's come across something that still lingered. Marked in orange highlighter back on his bookshelf, it came to him now. 

_How odd to be thinking about saving your life and about preparing for your funeral at the same time. Maybe that was what everyone was doing._

 

The zipper on his jeans was open.

 

His rationale jumped at him with alternate theories even as his fingers started to tremble violently, even as his blood flushed hot and then cold. Maybe he, high as fuck, had been overcome with a desire to piss in the street, but no. That wasn't it. Not now, not ever.

Not with him.

 

Disgust crawled repugnant and hot over him, his nails instinctively digging burning crescents into the flesh of his arms, but it wasn't _enough,_ not sharp enough, not painful enough, not keen enough. For a moment, his eyes stung, but perhaps even they realized the futility of tears, and the sensation gradually faded away. 

"The sense of feeling," he murmured, or maybe he didn't, maybe it was just inside his head or soft enough to be lost in the bitter taste inside his mouth, dissipated into the dim, fluorescent glow of his cavernous, anonymous alley, "Only serves one profitably until a point." 

 

And then he stood up, maybe because his nails weren't enough _,_ maybe because the artificiality and the sheer dreary _loneliness_ of this deserted ruin corroded his very flesh. Or maybe because there was an unopened bottle of Absolut in his flat with his name on it. 

So he stood, disregarding that shock of pain that ran through him, that concentrated itself into a dull, hollow ache somewhere in his chest. And as he stumbled out, he left his afterthought to linger eerily in the not-quite silence behind him, like a hint of April frost.

"After that point, one either cannot feel, or does not feel. And it's better that way."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 _Why,_ Rin vaguely wondered, _was pain the first thing he registered whenever he stopped self-destructing long enough to actually consider his situation?_ Because here he was, sprawled out on his couch with his crappy TV playing some crappy re-run. The bottle by his side had been a quarter of the way empty, was his best guess, a while ago. 

 

And he was bleeding.

 

From the burn in his wrists and thighs, he figured that the gashes there were what was slowly draining him out. He hadn't meant to take it this far, in all honesty, but when his blade, his _gauntlet_ , had slipped through his increasingly uncoordinated fingers, his only thought had been, _oh well._

And yet, the one redundant thought in his steadily slipping head now was, _fuck, this is a really shitty way to die._

 

Not even any profound last words. But he was so _sleepy,_ so tired, and he just wanted to close his eyes and call it a day already. An over-long, crappy day, admittedly, but one that was blessedly _over._

 

 

 

_"...Rin_ _.._ _"_

 

 

 

Maybe he was growing delirious in his last moments, because that _wasn't—_ it couldn't be— a voice.

A voice he hadn't heard for ten years.

 

 

"…Dad?"

 

It was useless, absolutely _ridiculous,_ but he had to try. 

 

There was no reply, just the repetition of a hauntingly familiar line.

 

_There were three brothers._

 

Then a pause, almost the expectation of a reply. And Rin _knew_ this, knew his part in this repertoire of theirs, but doing it _now_ gave him the same unpleasant thrill as when he had run into the Iwatobi haunted house on a dare. 

 

"One died drunk in power." It was the only story his father had ever told him.

 

_The other died for love._

 

"The third," breathed Rin, his eyes falling shut, "greeted Death as an old friend."

 

Maybe it was okay to go now, to drift away, to greet Death as an old friend, having lived under its near-constant shadow through life. A mirthless chuckle caught in his throat. _And they say the third brother was the luckiest._

 

A final prayer— _watch me, Toriachi—_ and it all faded away. 

 

* * *

 

 

_And God said, "Let there be light,"_

_and there was light._

 

But this light, it was _real,_ not the wispy smoke-god Rin had always been threatened into believing in. This, he figured, was sure as _hell_ not the pearly gates, the _moksha,_ because he was pretty certain that his lifestyle had landed him a one-way ticket to eternal torment. 

But if it was something _else_ that was inexorably pulling him in, well, it couldn't get any worse, could it?

 

And so he went.

 


	2. Hegira

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The frightening thing about stories is that everyone's destinies are predetermined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay okay okay I'M SORRY. I'VE HAD THIS THING IN MY DRAFT FOR 8387249 YEARS BUT I'VE BEEN TOO LAZY TO EDIT AND POST IT. But I FINALLY got down to it XD so here we are. Enjoy! And as usual, PLEASE HEED THE ARCHIVE WARNINGS. They're not there for a lark.

"…Nnnnnnnn?" 

 

For a moment, Rin was acutely reminded of the blazing scraps of paper under the magnifying glass he'd thought of as the greatest source of amusement as a kid. Because what _else_ could explain the sudden, blinding light that dazzled him even through his still-shut eyelids, the heat that seemed to pierce him through and then through? 

 

Jesus fuck, _he'd been reborn as a scrap of paper._

 

_Oh god, was he sorry for purposely stepping on a a bug that one time…_

 

Because he _was_ dead, wasn't he? No way in hell had he survived that kind of blood loss. 

 

And yet… the sensation of something repeatedly hitting his cheek, jarring his throbbing head, seemed entirely tangible. Which confused him because a) scraps of paper didn't _have_ cheeks and b) they didn't, to the best of Rin's knowledge, have heads either. 

 

_Well, the more you know._

Maybe in a moment he'd open his eyes ( _eyes?),_ investigate the extent of his faculties, maybe he'd swat at the annoying thing and tell it to fuck the hell off and leave him to float in peace. For now, though, he was content to shut it out as best as he could and stay in that hazy place between sleep and wakefulness, between consciousness and the lack thereof, between life and death. Because it wasn't _hot_ any more, not really, just pleasantly warm… warm, warm…

 

Cold.

 

"The _fuck?!"_ he bolted upright, inertia vanishing in the face of the deluge of the ice-cold water that hit him like a taser. 

 

"Oh, khuda ki khair se aap jag gaye!"

 

The foreignness of this exclamation stalled Rin's impending volley of abuse in its tracks. It was certainly no language he'd ever heard before. And that was the _least_ of the factors that were conspiring to give him a heart attack. Because the man standing before him… it took him a moment to fully trust in the evidence of his eyes. 

 

And when he did, his only thought was _well this sure isn't Japan._

 

The sheen of the sun off _sand,_ the lazy waving of palm trees, the man himself in his harem pants and turban, was like a page from the books he had loved so much, a book full of magic and myth and utterly unreachable. _Aladdin. Ali Baba._ Because he'd _read_ about them, these desert people with their strange, bright clothes, their guttural tongues, their riches. Had even wished, idly, that a sweeping gale would pick him up and deposit him there, far away from his problems, but _this…_

 

He shook his head to clear it, hissing as it screamed in protest, and dragged himself back just in time to catch the end of what had apparently been a long, indignant monologue. So he was being reprimanded now. What, was it a crime now to turn up passed out on the streets of... oh, Timbucktoo?

 

"…tawajjoh karein, shehenshah-e-alam!" 

 

Rin knew he should say something in reply, should demand where the hell he was, but, in sheer mockery of the baking climate, his throat seemed to have frozen up as he opened and shut his mouth like a demented goldfish. 

 _Fuck, say something, say something,_ say something _you aho._

 

_"…Shehenshah?"_

It was the only strangled-sounding reply he could muster when he'd finally managed to unstick his throat. That word, didn't it mean…?

 The man ignored his interjection, instead launching into a new lecture. The strangeness of the beautiful-sounding words, _quayaas…_ _mutabiq… zara si taqueer…_ washed over him like a lullaby, and his eyes slid out of focus. So much so that it was a while before he realized he was being asked something.

 

"What."

 

Really, this guy should know better than to talk gibberish at a complete stranger. Rin briefly considered regaling the costumed freak with a few choice scathing remarks, but thought better of it at second glance. Now that he really took him in aside from the ridiculous getup, he realized that this man could wreak serious damage. He was well-built, for one, his bare torso rippling with muscles. The violet eyes behind ornate glasses glinted, alert, indignant, energetic.

_Alertness and energy, huh._

 

He could probably take Rin out in one in his current weakened state. _And even quicker with that thing,_ he glanced apprehensively at the old-fashioned musket by his side. 

And since Rin didn't have a prayer in hell of outrunning him with his slashed-up legs, it was best, he figured, to keep from rousing his ire. So he settled for shooting him an unimpressed look as his only reply, with a little exasperated shake of his head, hoping that the stranger would offer a more cohesive explanation upon registering his evident confusion. But he just sighed, muttering something that sounded like _oogleboogle_ under his breath, and motioned to someone behind him. Rin tensed up at the sight of the burly men who came forth at the signal, muscles locking, but they were only bearing a _palanquin._

 

Arms locked around Rin.

 

"What the—!"

Before he could protest, before he could aim a nose-shattering kick at the _megane's_ face, he was being bodily lifted into the carrier. He barely caught the tail-end of what sounded like an apology at the pained grunt he made when his injured limbs were jostled, and then the palanquin carrying him was picked up. Soon enough, he felt the recursive swaying that meant that the bearers had started walking. 

 

* * *

 

Between, you know, waking up in the fucking lord-god's buttcrack and being threatened by a scary _megane_ in a language he _didn't even understand,_ Rin had had no time to actually feel _scared._ But now, left to his own devices in a closed-off box, he could feel his mind going into overdrive, his palms beginning to sweat. He shut his eyes, trying to calm his mind, stall the signs of an impending panic attack. If it went on this way, these people wouldn't even need to go to the trouble of killing him— he'd have taken care of that himself. 

 

 _Okay,_ he timed his breathing, trying to decelerate his heartbeat. _Okay, Rin, you're going to calm down. You're going to calm down, and you're going to figure out where you are._

 

He let out a snort of laughter despite himself. _That_ should be easy. 

 

 _Well,_ he took a deep breath. He was never going to know if he didn't try to find out, and he highly doubted he could get an answer by accosting one of the palanquin bearers and demanding to visit the Japanese Embassy. 

 

_Yeah, well, the curtains aren't there just for decoration, you fuckhead._

 

He raised an eyebrow. 

 

 _What, would you have liked to wallow in self-pity a while longer?_ Do _excuse me for trying to save our life._

 

"Sometimes I really don't like you," he muttered out loud, ending the conversation by twitching a curtain out of the way. 

 

His first thought was _I am being microwaved._

 

His second thought was _well this is different._

 

Because the heat which he'd managed to all but forget about by dint of being doused with cold water and then carried in a shaded palanquin now made it nigh impossible to open the curtains to look outside. And yet, despite the threat of having his eyebrows singed off, he couldn't take his eyes off the landscape that unfolded in the path of his transport. It was… well, Rin couldn't find words fitting enough to describe it, but if he had to, he'd probably say _fiction._ It was _Cities of Salt_ and _Distant View of a Minaret_ and _Night, Horses and the Desert._ It was children on the streets, clothed in the same bare-chest-and-baggy-pants fashion after the glasses guy. It was carved toys, desert crickets on strings and misshapen wooden balls. 

 

It was unreal. 

 

And even though he was conscious of a sense of surrealism, like he need only make a false move and it would all dissipate, leaving him back at his apartment with his life-blood leaving him and no one to care if it did, the scenery somehow strangely calmed him. 

 

Calm enough to feel discomfited when they all stopped to bow in the path of his little procession. His lips twitched up into a wry grin. Maybe this was how they treated lambs to slaughter around here.

And maybe he didn't yet know exactly how he'd found himself here. But he _did_ know that even if they killed him, he'd be content enough to lie here, his ashes scattered to the winds that blew free and far away from everything he'd ever known and hated. In this town of mud and straw houses, with the sunlight that broke into rainbow fragments where it collided with the white glass-sand, maybe his shitty life would find a decent conclusion. 

All the same, his palms we sweating again, and the pendulous motion of the palanquin was starting to make him feel nauseous. He was grateful when it stopped with a jolt, though he couldn't stop a curse from slipping past his lips. It was a strange feeling, approaching his imminent demise, but it didn't in any way allay the knifing of pain through his deep, unhealed cuts. 

 

He closed his eyes again when the curtains to his carriage were opened by the same guy from before. Would he be the one to behead him, or whatever it was they did here? Somehow, Rin didn't think so. He might have sounded threatening earlier, but the voice that presently sounded was so full of panicked concern that Rin doubted this guy could hurt a fly when it actually came down to it. 

 

_Still, you of all people should know about deceptive appearances._

 

And he was being asked something again. Seriously, _when_ was he going to realize that Rin didn't speak Arabic or whatever? He just shook his head again, in annoyance this time, not bothering to open his eyes. 

 

"What the _fuck—,"_ they flew open of their own accord when the _megane,_ for the second time that day, lifted him up, and placed him on a waiting stretcher. His subsequent struggle was cut short when he caught sight of exactly _where_ he was being carried to.

 

It wasn't the gallows.

 

It wasn't even a holding cell.

 

It was a _goddamn palace._

 

All his clamoring questions died in his throat in favor of simply staring at magnificence of the white marble structure which seemed to gleam iridescent in the sun's glare. At the shimmering blue oasis bordering it. It was easily the hugest structure he'd ever seen, and he lived in _Tokyo_. And Rin was getting tired of thinking this, but it was, _was_ something straight out of Arabian Nights.

 

The glasses guy seemed to be directing them somewhere inside the palace, but Rin couldn't bring himself to care, not when the wealth practically oozing from sweeping alabaster staircases, resplendent golden chandeliers, striking paintings done in oils, even the tiny vials of scent on the mantelpieces, claimed the larger part of his attention. After a while of weaving through majestic, labyrinthine corridors, they finally stopped in front of a wooden door, inlaid with the most beautiful stone and jewel-work he had ever seen. Something like _gustakhi ke liye maafi chahte hain_ was muttered, and then the door was thrown open. 

 

And Rin froze.

 

Because he came face to face with _himself,_ reclining on plush bedding, staring at them with a _very_ irritated expression on his face.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh heh heh *creepy shmirk*


	3. Reflection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why is it, that when you face, actually face your reflection, you find it grotesque and twisted, like you're staring into a funhouse mirror?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has Angie FINALLY updated before 28786262 years??? Yes, yes, I think she has.
> 
> I'm sure I don't need to tell you this at this point, but, as usual, HEED THE ARCHIVE WARNINGS.
> 
> Oh, and (the only useful part of this note) to grasp the complete meaning of this chapter, with all its implications, make sure to read the translation at the end. Happy reading! Tell me if you like Prince Rin. I had to do a LOT of brainstorming to dream up his character XD

Silence.

 

For a solid five minutes, for an _eternity,_ there was utter, deafening silence in the chamber as Rin stared at… well, _himself_ in utter shock. Saw that shock mirrored in carmine eyes, twins to his own. And then, finally, barely above a whisper, his own voice sounded out.

 

" _Kaun ho tum?"_

 

Rin was sure he said something _incredibly_ undignified in reply. Or maybe a dying whale noise forced itself past his stunned throat. Either way, the debilitating hush in the chamber was broken, and it seemed to snap his… twin? doppelgänger? back to his senses, the confusion clearing from his eyes, which in turn began to glare daggers at Rin as he drew himself up to his full height.

 

_"Tumne… aisi himaquat karne ki jurrat kaise ki?"_

 

Rin might not have understood a word of what had just been said to him, but it didn't take a genius to figure out the gist of it. If he didn't say something sharpish, this was not going to end well for him. And death, well, that was one thing, but being beheaded or whatever it was they did here with _himself_ watching with cold, expressionless eyes? That was another thing altogether. 

 

Gradual, almost imperceptible, rusty from disuse, vestiges of _curiosity_ crept over him, and with it sudden, paralyzing _fear. Fear of death._

Fear of dying without figuring out this conundrum that had put him face to face with his own glaring mirror, of ceasing to know without knowing whether his counterpart was happier than he had ever been. Heck, maybe no one could understand a word he said, but he'd be damned if he didn't at least _try_ to explain himself. 

 

So he braced his trembling fingers against the stretcher, and uttered his first, memorable words to himself, which came out in a strangled croak vaguely resembling a tree-frog's. 

 

_Shit. No. Worst fucking time to be lost for words._

 

He cleared his throat, clenched his sweaty fists, tried again, grabbing at what came immediately to mind.

 

"Who are you?"

 

More silence. He watched his own brows raise in surprise, then furrow again, before he answered. "I should be asking you that."

 

"I'm Rin," he answered mechanically, before it hit him. "Wait, you speak Japanese?"

 

"It's imperative for a prince to be well-versed in many different languages," he brushed Rin off impatiently. "However, more to the point—," 

 

"Wait wait wait _wait,"_ Rin interrupted the pseudo-himself mid-sentence, ignoring the horrified stare the _megane_ shot him. "You're a _prince?"_

 

"What else does it look like?" pseudo-prince-Rin snapped at him, annoyance flashing clear across his features. Rin briefly wondered if he himself was as easy to read. " _Anyway—,"_

 

"So why do you look like me?" Rin cut in for the second time in the span of five minutes. 

 

The _look_ that the prince directed at him then promised his imminent demise, and Rin instinctively tightened his death-grip on the arms of the stretcher. The _megane_ looked like he was about to burst into tears. Rin was almost sure that the next words out of the prince's mouth would condemn him to the gallows or the dungeons or something, but all he asked him with the same, unwavering, dark look was, "Can you stand?"

 

"I… think so." 

It came out sounding like a question, and Rin silently cursed himself as the prince wordlessly leveled him with a look that said, _well?_

 

 _"Shitttttt…,"_ he muttered under his breath as he clambered off the stretcher, gingerly testing his balance on the slippery marble flooring. Prince-Rin simply watched the whole scene unfold in silence. When Rin was confident of his balance, no longer needing to hold on to the solidity of wood and canvas, he issued a single command. 

 

_"Taqhliya."_

 

Shit. Maybe that was Arabic or whatever for _kill this bastard now._ Rin braced himself, but, to his surprise, the glasses guy and the stretcher-bearers simply bowed and retreated.  

 

"Now," prince-Rin was back to Japanese, pinching the bridge of his nose between two heavily bejeweled fingers, "I will ask you questions, and you will answer them. You will not speak, except to reply to my questions. And you will answer truthfully, or else…" 

Here he left his sentence to hang in the air, tingeing it with menace, and withdrew a wicked-looking knife with a craved hilt from one of his ornate drawers, twirling it idly between his fingers with the predatory grace of an animal.

 

 _"_ I've a good mind to have you executed," he went on, tone of voice level, "but I'll be damned if I do that before getting to the bottom of this whole business. In a word, if you want to live, obey me and interest me." 

 

All Rin could do was nod. _Fuck,_ if he'd known to be this imperious, his lot of shit in life would have reduced by half. 

 

"Now then. Let's begin, shall we?" Prince-Rin sat himself in a padded armchair opposite him. "You claim to be me, _Rin._ How can I believe that you're not an impostor?" 

 

Rin bit back the urge to tell his doppelgänger to take a good long look in the mirror. There was no mistaking it, but how the hell was he supposed to _prove_ that he was himself when he could hardly magic a passport out of thin air? 

 

"…..........." 

 

"I'm _waiting,"_ the prince said, snapping his fingers as the wont of someone who was not accustomed to doing so. 

 

'Um…," he considered for a moment, mind racing, before making a formal bow. "My name is Matsuoka Rin. I have a girly name, but I'm a boy. My favorite animal is the shark. My favorite color is red. I loved—," he vehemently suppressed the catch in his voice, "I _love_ to swim. I like spicy food, especially meat, but not sweet things. My favorite thing to study is English and my least favorite is Old Japanese. I like music but not reading." _Not any more._

 

There was a long silence after he straightened up in which he stared at the prince, wishing he'd not missed his immediate reaction and trying to read his inscrutable expression, growing increasingly apprehensive. After an interminable moment, though, his jaw relaxed and he sighed. 

"Well, I suppose it's a mercy you chose to turn up on the outskirts of my kingdom, and not the town square or something. Saved me the embarrassment."

 

Rin released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding at the words. 

 

"And you got one thing wrong," prince-Rin interrupted his internal victory-dance. "I _love_ reading." 

 

Suddenly, suddenly, Rin felt curiously _light._ His heart rose, buoyed by the weightless words. So much so that he even allowed a genuine smile to spread out across his face. "Ah… I see."

 

_I see._

 

"Speaking of, how _did_ you turn up here? Hindustan's an ocean and a good bit of land away from Japan."

 

Rin smile froze in place. His buoyant spirits sank as if weighed down with lead as he scrambled to frame an answer to that question, an answer he himself neither knew, nor cared to find out. 

 

"Hin— _what?_ Where _are_ we, exactly?" he grasped at the opportunity to divert the discussion to safer territory. "Is that… somewhere in Arabia?" 

 

Maybe playing dumb was his safest bet here.

 

_That shouldn't be too hard for you, should it now?_

 

"…Tch."

 

The reaction was so familiar, so _himself,_ that the corners of Rin's mouth twitched up despite himself, in a rueful smile. It only widened further at the contemptuous _don't they teach you basic geography in japan hmph_ that followed it.

 

"…Hey, what're you laughing about?" 

 

"Nothing, nothing," he felt the teasing creeping into his tone, oddly comfortable in the presence of this overbearing, arrogant version of himself, of everything he _could_ have been. "Just thinking about how that was exactly how _I'd_ react."

 

The prince sighed, the ghost of an answering smile flitting across his face. 

"Well, for your information, Hindustan is nowhere near Arabia. What you were hearing wasn't Arabic, it was Urdu. And I don't see what's so surprising about us having the same reactions, if we're the same person. Two manifestations of a personality, if you will." 

 

"……" 

 

Rin let out a long breath. He'd dodged a bullet, there. "…Yeah, maybe you're right."

 

 _"_ I _am_ right. Which is precisely why I also caught on to how skillfully you dodged my actual question. Rin froze yet again as prince-Rin smirked at him with no trace of humor in his eyes. "Sometime you'll realize that your best bet here is to _listen_ to me. I'll ask you just one more time. _How did you get here?"_

 

"I don't really know, exactly," Rin stammered out, words failing him as he realized anew just how dangerous the person facing him was. "I just remember losing consciousness and then having a light suck me in."

 

"Hmmmmm… _humare guman mein, yahan humse badi, hum sab se badi, koi taaquat kaam kar rahi hai,"_ the prince looked past Rin, muttering to himself words in that same, beautiful language, _Urdu,_ he reminded himself, that Rin did not understand. He seemed oddly pensive now. "You do speak the Japanese of an original dweller. So natural, it flows like water…," and then, cutting himself off from his reverie, he looked at Rin. 

 

"Since there is no evidence to the contrary, I suppose I'll take you at your word. Do _not,"_ here he stared Rin dead in the eye, identical crimson gazes locking, "make light of this privilege." 

 

 _What was_ it _about this stick-up-the-ass Arabian prince,_ Rin thought furiously as he felt his head tilt in an involuntary nod, _that bereft him of all words?_

 

And then the prince broke his gaze away, and the moment was over. 

 

"I'm assuming you lost consciousness because of those," his pitch was back to normal as he motioned to the various gashes snaking across Rin's body. "Did you get into a fight with someone." 

 

"…You could say that." 

 

It was the most honest reply Rin could give.

 

Prince-Rin shot him a quizzical look, but said nothing more, except a muttered _idiot_ under his breath, instead looking to the door and calling, "Rei!"

 

_Yes, idiot indeed._

 

 _"Kya hukum, jahanpanah?"_ the same glasses-guy, _Rei_ evidently, entered the room, bowing low. 

 

_"Isko mahal ke zenane mein ek aalishan kamra do, aur Makoto ko hukum do ki har roz do baar iske zakhmon ki marhampatti kar ke jaaye. Khayal rakna ki ise kisi cheez ki zehmat na ho."_

The prince delivered his commands like a machine, expressionlessly, and Rei bowed again in acknowledgement of them, motioning to Rin to follow him as he made to leave, but prince-Rin stopped them.

 

 

 

_"Aur haan. Jin mazdooron ne iski palki yahan tak laayi thi, unke munh hamein majbooran hamesha ke liye band karne padenge."_

 

_"Jo hukum, shehenshah."_

 

_"Ab is aadmi ke aane ki khabar akele tum jaante ho. Hamein tumhe yeh batane ki zaroorat nahin hai ki goyan yeh khabar is chaardeewari se nikli, to tumhara kya hashr hoga."_

 

_"Jee, jahanpanah."_

 

Rin was just beginning to tap his foot impatiently at this long-winded, incomprehensible exchange when the prince turned to address him. 

 

"You're being taken to live in the _zenana,_ where no man is allowed to come in. You will wear the same clothes I do to stop any inane gossip from spreading. You will want for nothing and I will be sending a medicine-man in presently to treat your wounds. But just in case you feel like spreading incommodious rumors," his eyes flashed dangerously, "you'd do well to remember that I've had the palanquin bearers put to death for just witnessing what they did."

 

For a moment, Rin couldn't speak for shock.

 

_That's four more people's deaths on your head._

 

_Good._

 

"You _monster."_

 

It was all he could breathe out, wrenching his arm free of Rei's grip. He didn't know which was worse— the pain that knifed through it, or the cold prickles running all over his body.

 

He's fully expected prince-Rin's expression to darken, his— _their—_ quick temper to rise again, but he just looked resigned. Tired. Maybe even… _sad?_ Rin didn't think he could have identified the play of emotions across the prince's face if he hadn't seen that very set so many times in the mirror. 

 

" _Bakhuda,"_ and the prince was looking at Rin, but didn't seem to be addressing him any more, instead addressing something bigger that hung heavy in the air. _"Hum zindagi ya aazadi ke dushman nahin, apne usoolon ke ghulam hain. Ek ghulam ki bebasi par ghaur karoge to shayad tum hamein maaf kar sako. Shayad kisi roz tum samajh paaoge._ _Taqhliya."_

 

And Rei, with a firm hold on his arm, led him away. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, heeeeere we go with the translations ((sorry if this chapter's a little Urdu-heavy because I'm unbelievably self-indulgent and it's a beautiful language. 
> 
> "Kaun ho tum?" - Who are you?
> 
> "Tumne… aisi himaquat karne ki jurrat kaise ki?" - how dare you do this disgusting thing?
> 
> "Taqhliya." - Not really a direct English translation for this, it's what a person of high social standing said, back in the Mughal era, when they wanted everyone to leave. So something like, leave?
> 
> "humare guman mein, yahan humse badi, hum sab se badi, koi taaquat kaam kar rahi hai," - In my opinion, a power bigger than me, bigger than all of us, is at work here.
> 
> "Kya humkum, jahanpanah" - What is your will, emperor?
> 
> "Isko mahal ke zenane mein ek aalishan kamra do, aur Makoto ko hukum do ki har roz do baar iske zakhmon ki marhampatti kar ke jaaye. Khayal rakna ki ise kisi cheez ki zehmat na ho." - Give him a palatial room in the zenana of the palace, and command Makoto to nurse his wounds twice a day. Take care that he doesn't face any kind of trouble. (A zenana is the women's wing of a palace. It is guarded solely by eunuchs and no male can set foot inside it. The prince puts him there to guard Rin from the eyes of over-inquisitive people.)
> 
> "Aur haan. Jin mazdooron ne iski palki yahan tak laayi thi, unke munh hamein majbooran hamesha ke liye band karne padenge." - And yes. We will unfortunately have to silence permanently all the laborers who carried his palanquin here.
> 
> "Jo hukum, shehenshah." - As you wish, emperor.
> 
> "Ab is aadmi ke aane ki khabar akele tum jaante ho. Hamein tumhe yeh batane ki zaroorat nahin hai ki goyan yeh khabar is chaardeewari se nikli, to tumhara kya hashr hoga." - Now you are the only one who knows about this man's arrival. I don't need to tell you what will become of you lest this news escapes these four walls.
> 
>  
> 
> "Jee, jahanpanah." - Yes, your Majesty.
> 
> "Bakhuda, hum zindagi ya aazadi ke dushman nahin, apne usoolon ke ghulam hain. Ek ghulam ki bebasi par ghaur karoge to shayad tum hamein maaf kar sako. Shayad kisi roz tum samajh paaoge. Takhliya." - By god, I am not the enemy of life or liberty, but simply a slave to my rules. If you consider the utter helplessness of a slave, maybe you'll be able to forgive me. Maybe one day you will understand. Leave.
> 
>  
> 
> Okay, now. Why did I use Hindustan, rather than Arabia, for my setting? 
> 
> Simply, convenience. If you consider the climate and culture of western Hindustan, in particular, you'll find it greatly resembles that of Arabia (the desert climate, the riches, the sultans). I also felt that, instead of floundering and butchering beautiful thoughts with the aid of Google Translate, I could express myself better if I simply used a setting and a language I was familiar and comfortable with.


	4. Rehabilitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recovery is slow, recovery is agonizing, but recovery is necessary if you ever want to look at the world with new eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this in ONE day XD. First draft, edits, everything. So it's probably rushed, filler-y and shitty. I apologize in advance.

A breath of tepid wind, a faint sliver of torrid sun. 

 

These were the only things that foretold the arrival of another day from where Rin lay unmoving, unblinking, swaddled amidst the plush bedding of the room he'd found himself relegated to. And although the chill of the desert night had scarce been diluted by the promise of the oncoming heat, a cold sweat was dripping down his brow.

 

 _How long had he been here?_ He didn't know. Hours, days, _weeks_ melded into each other like a painting, fiery gold-orange transitioning into dusky velvet purple transitioning into silvery blue. And then the cycle began again with muted gray-pink, seamless as a reel. Any graininess hazed over by the ever-present overtone of _pain._

 

He knew he should at least _attempt_ to keep an estimate of the times between each gold-pink, and the knowledge, the sense of neglected custom itched under his skin like the grit of dust in his eyes, under his nails. But the torpor prevailing over him, hanging heavy over his head, his body, his surroundings, weighed down all his leaden attempts at movement. He didn't know whether it was the opiate-laced water they were giving him or _what,_ but his body seemed perfectly docile to this lethargy, reveling in it even. Disgustingly content to the extent that even scratching angry red into any exposed flesh to vent his utter _frustration_ at his incapacity exhausted him. 

 

And then there was the medicine-man. 

 

The look of worry on his face when he'd come to look at his injures, and the kindness that glimmered in his forest-green eyes, that came through without needing a medium as base as words, had given Rin a longer leash than was advisable for his own good. 

 

The first thing Rin had done after his installation into what Rei had pointed to and said _zenana_ had been to order the instant closing of the heavy, outer curtains. Cloistering himself inside this room cloaked in dark and gloom and shadow, where he could open his eyes and _not see,_ where he could close his eyes and slow down and mull, had, in that moment, seemed like the solution to all his problems. 

But when _Makoto,_ as he'd painstakingly managed to introduce himself, had arrived, medicine-case and stupidly warm smile in tow, he had looked so abjectly appalled at the oppressive cheerlessness of the chamber that Rin hadn't had the heart to get the drapes shut again when Makoto had opened them after a few visits, disregarding entirely Rin's vehement protests.  

And, well, the dazzling, sincere _smile_ that had been bestowed upon Rin when Makoto's next visit had found the curtains still drawn had made him feel equal parts safe and uncomfortable, so it couldn't have been _too_ bad, right? He'd even held off from jerking away when he'd taken one grim look at Rin's cuts and begun swabbing at them with a cloth dipped in something that had looked and smelled like hellfire. 

 

He'd ended up with a poultice of sorts covering half his body which had smelled vaguely of calendula and cinnamon and spicy clove, and strict injunctions to not stir from the bed, to not lift a finger until he was given leave. 

 

So that was that, and here he was. 

 

And considering the situation, it had been easy to lull himself into thinking that it was no _use,_ that it didn't _matter_ whether he scored grooves into the wood of his bedstead every time the pattern-painting undulated, repeated itself over and under and around, or whether he opened his hand and let the silk-fine sand slip away through his fingers. 

 

So he'd complied.

 

Detached, unhinged, he'd lain back. Let the sand snake its way out his hand, into one globe of the shadowy hourglass and out the other. 

 

 _Let_ the days pass him by. 

 

During the first length of time, in the aftermath of the last vestiges of adrenaline having left his body, he'd noticed little and felt even less, save for the burn in his limbs, the parch in his throat. He'd been somewhat aware of blurry shapes skimming the edges of his vision, of a near-continuous breeze brushing across his face, of cool, soothing hands feeding him water whenever the thirst clawed at his throat. An occasional verdant gaze, cooling cloths on his forehead, and not much else. 

No one had tried to speak to him in this span, and he'd been grateful for it, because any sound had only made the hammering in his head worse, sound had disrupted the semi-tolerable haze he'd settled himself into, drifting in and out of awareness. 

 

Sometimes Rin, the _other_ Rin, had come to visit him. In his moments of lucidity, they would talk, but more often than not, he would sit on the other end of the bed, watching Rin toss and turn in his fever-haze like he was a particularly unusual laboratory specimen, a conundrum the prince couldn't quite quite make sense of. Once, so fleeting he'd been sure he'd imagined it, he'd felt a roughened, callused hand stroke across his forehead. 

 

"………………"

 

Rin sighed, turned over. The last vestiges of delirium were fading from his consciousness, and the worst of the horrible _horrible it was horrible you hear me_ pain had passed. 

 

He closed his eyes. 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

During the worst of Rin's bed rest, when his head had felt like the mallet of pain working away inside it would burst it open, when every shadow and nook and cranny had twisted into grotesque, monstrous creatures, he had felt as if time would, _could_ never pass. 

But pass it did. 

Rin found out that duress, even an atrocious extreme of it, would not stop its passage, and neither would the infinite, eternal, unchangeable be called to a halt when his clarity of mind began to return. 

 

And now that the flashes of what could justly be described as all-encompassing _agony_ were few and far between, Rin began to notice the conspicuous absence of the other him. Almost without him noticing, the prince's visits had become more frequent, almost a fixture in the eternal sameness of his days. One of the things you don't realize you have until you _don't._

 

So the next time Makoto came around to change his dressings, he actually spoke to him for the first time ever, a conversation not composed entirely of hisses of pain and punctuated largely by Rin's frequent glares. 

 

"Where's Rin?"

 

When he received a puzzled gaze as his only response, the realization that _no fucking one here spoke a decent language_ hit him anew. Fuck. He'd all but forgotten that niggling detail in light of events transpired. 

 

"Rin?" he tried again, slowly enunciating the word, hands making vague tiara motions over his own head. "Y'know, the crown guy? Nasty temper? Looks like me?"

 

"Tch," he inhaled in frustration when Makoto just eyed him as if concerned for his mental health. An answer didn't seem forthcoming, despite his best attempts at charades. 

 

"Ugh… okay, your king? Ruler? Emperor?" Then it hit him. " _Shehenshah?"_

 

"Ah…," the confusion cleared from Makoto's brow, replaced by wide-eyed astonishment.

 

"Yes, yes," Rin nodded vigorously, in case Makoto missed the point _again._ "Shehenshah, Rin, king. _Where is he?"_

 

Makoto frowned for a moment before he sighed and shook his head. _"Maafi chahta hoon janab, lekin mujhe maloom nahin hai ki is waqt shehenshah kahan hain."_

 

And, well, Rin _didn't_ know what that meant, but he was willing to bet it wasn't "follow me, I'll take you to his chamber."

 

"Ughhhh…….," he resisted the urge to kick his feet and throw a childish, full-fledged tantrum right there, instead settling for shooting Makoto his most murderous glare. "What part of _I want to know where the fuck he is right fucking now_ do you not understand?"

 

And when Makoto gave him the same reply again, stretching his arms out in a gesture of supplication, helplessness, _how the fuck did it matter,_ Rin was left to ponder for a brief moment about how the part of his diatribe Makoto _hadn't_ understood was probably the whole thing. 

 

And then, "…Rei."

 

He said the name slowly, drawing it out, so that the other man couldn't possibly pretend to misunderstand. "I want to see Rei." 

 

Makoto faltered for a moment before his eyes softened even further and he gave Rin a small smile. _"Mujhe maloom padta hai ki aap abni khwahish se nahin digne waale. Bahot khoob. Main Rei ke liye paigaam bhejta hoon."_

 

With that, he disappeared out the door, smile still firmly in place, leaving Rin to wait and hope that whatever Makoto had said translated to _right away_ and not _go to hell, you smarmy bastard._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Fifteen minutes later, Rei, in all his bespectacled glory, was bowing before him. 

 

" _Assalam-al-aikum. Farmaiye, main aapki kis tarah se khidmat kar sakta hoon."_

 

Rin didn't have a clue what _that_ meant, so he settled for repeating his earlier demand. 

 

"Rin. _Shehenshah._ Rin. I want to see him."

 

Rei didn't miss a beat. Makoto must have briefed him earlier. 

 

_"Maaf kijiyega, lekin shehenshah-e-alam ki is waqt kisi se milne ki khwahish nahin hai. Hum aapko unke paas nahin le ja sakte hain."_

 

The kind but dismissive tone was all the answer Rin needed to execute his contingency plan. 

 

"I want to see Rin," he snarled, sitting up and gingerly stepping out of bed. "So help me, I _will_ scour this entire fucking palace by myself until I find him, so you'd better fucking take me to him yourself. Trust me, I'm getting _pretty damn tired_ of lying around in bed all day."

 

Threat done, he made for the door, and Rei, predictably, moved to stop him. 

 

"Get out of the _fucking_ way," he shoved at him roughly. He could almost _see_ the cogs turning in the other man's mind, unable to stop or hit the body of his prince. He'd be in a _hell_ lot more trouble if he injured this precious new acquisition of his than if he simply co-operated with Rin. 

 

Rei sighed, a long-suffering, resigned exhale. 

_"…Bahut khoob. Jaisi aapki marzi."_

 

_Bingo._

 

He turned, opened the door. 

Rei turned to address the healer, who just shook his head mutely. Rin had forgotten that he was still in the room, watching the proceedings with a kind of horrified anticipation. 

 

 _"Mere saath aaiye,"_ Rei's attention back on Rin, he gestured with his arm and they set off in step towards the door. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NO JOKE IT WAS HONESTLY HELLSHIT TO FIND A NON-AWKWARDS PLACE TO END THIS CHAPTER.
> 
> Anyway, translations: 
> 
> "Maafi chahta hoon janab, lekin mujhe maloom nahin hai ki is waqt shehenshah kahan hain." - Forgive me, good sir, but I do not know where the emperor is right now.
> 
> "Mujhe maloom padta hai ki aap abni khwahish se nahin digne waale. Bahot khoob. Main Rei ke liye paigaam hoon." - I see that you are not to be deterred from your wish. Very well. I shall send for Rei.
> 
> "Assalam-al-aikum. Farmaiye, main aapki kis tarah se khidmat kar sakta hoon." - My greetings. Pray tell me, how may I help you?
> 
> "Maaf kijiyega, lekin shehenshah-e-alam ki is waqt kisi se milne ki khwahish nahin hai. Hum aapko unke paas nahin le ja sakte hain." - Pardon me, but the emperor does not wish to see anyone right now. We cannot take you to him.
> 
> "…Bahut khoob. Jaisi aapki marzi." - …Very well. As you wish.
> 
> "Makoto, inke chalnein-phirne mein to koi dushwari nahin hai?" - Makoto, will there be trouble if he moves around? 
> 
> "Mere saath aaiye," - Come with me


	5. Ingress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why is it so hard to be honest with yourself?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well well well hellew there :3. I just dashed this chapter off tbh so excuse me if it seems a bit rushed.

Fun fact about the palace: the corridors went on _forever._ Rin was pretty sure he'd never be able to find his way out of it without Rei. 

 

Fun fact number two: Rin should  _really_ have taken the first one into consideration before he decided to jump out of bed half-mummified in bandages. 

 

Right around the twenty-fifth time Rin sighed impatiently at Rei, right around when Rin's eyes began to cloud and his legs to ache anew, they stopped. Rin blinked once, twice into the sudden dazzle of the brilliant sunshine on open ground at the sudden termination of the passage, and almost collided with Rei's back, which had come to an abrupt standstill.

 

"Would you _watch it?"_ Rin grumbled, catching himself just in time to avoid oh-so-gracefully sprawling on the floor. He resisted the urge to give Rei an annoyed prod in the back by way of getting him to move when he just continued to stand there, stock-still in complete disregard of Rin's annoyance. "And let's _go,_ already."

 

He had just begun to tap his foot when Rei whirled around rather violently and bowed, making Rin near about jump out of his skin. 

_"Maaf kijiye janab, lekin hum mein se kisi ko is dehleez ke paar quadam rakhne ki ijazat nahin hai. Isse aage aapko akele, apne tawajjoh par jaana hoga. Ijazat chahta hoon."_

 

Before Rin had time to react, to even remind this fucking _freak_ for the billionth time that he _didn't speak this shit language,_ he had mysteriously disappeared into a shadowy corner, and his outstretched hand could only grab at thin air. 

 

"Oi—," too late, he called out to emptiness. Seriously, what the fuck was _up_ with this guy's disappearing skills? 

Now that he was alone, though, he felt suddenly adrift. It felt eerily like the sheer _light_ would swallow him up if he dared step foot in it. The realization that someone could kill him and bury him somewhere in this three-thousand-acre place, and no one would ever find him, crept over him like a bad premonition. 

 

He shook his head, inhaled. 

 

_Because how how the fuck does it matter_

 

 

He stepped over the threshold

 

There was a whooshing of air 

 

And he felt, rather than saw, the swipe of a wickedly sharp blade inches from his face. 

 

" _KISNE JURRAT—,"_

 

 _"What the—,"_ Rin choked on his own words when he took in the length of the double-edged sword that the prince was currently pointing at him. "— _fuck?!_ You trying to kill me?" 

 

_"You?!"_

 

The prince opened his mouth, as if to say something else, but then, in a slow moment, snapped it shut again. A range of expression flashed across the prince's face, too fast for Rin to distinguish one from the next, when it registered with him just who the disturbance was. Soon enough, though, the play of shock, anger… _concern?_ hardened into the impassive mask Rin knew so well and wished he didn't, and tossing the sword aside, he grabbed Rin's arm.

 

" _Hey_ —," his protests were lost in the angry heat that seemed to radiate off the prince as he dragged Rin inside the palace again, to the nearest room. 

 

"I don't care to know what you were doing out of bed, _in my private courtyard,_ but I will _not_ have you putting me to shame in front of the world and its cousin, do you _understand?"_

 

Prince-Rin punctuated the end of his hissed tirade with a rough shake to Rin's shoulder before he abruptly left off, clicking his tongue and turning away, leaving Rin to wonder for a brief moment whether he was going to leave him to rot in this caricature of plentitude. But he simply pushed aside a tapestry to reveal a panel set into the wall. He pressed it, and it sank away beneath a torch-lit passage. 

"Come," the prince motioned to Rin, who could only stare at this mercurial mood-shift. 

 

"You too?"

 

"Hmmmm?" the prince stretched out a hand, waving it impatiently. "Me too _what?_ More importantly, are you coming or do you want me to leave you to rot here for the rest of eternity?"

 

"Mhm."

 

A queer feeling settled in Rin's chest, but he smothered its voice in favor of taking the proffered hand and following himself into the half-light.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Are you _serious?!"_

 

Rin gaped at his surroundings. The crimson-maroon-carmine decor, the opulence that seemed to press in on him from every chandelier-lit crevice, they were all _extremely_ familiar. "Do you, like, have secret passages leading to your room _everywhere?"_

 

Prince-Rin had made straight for the cushioned velvet settee in the corner of the room upon their entrance, and it was from there that he presently replied, customary irritated expression firmly in place. "Mostly everywhere. Has anyone told you that you talk too much?"

 

"Not recently," Rin smiled humorlessly, unable to keep the tinge of bitterness out of his tone. "Maybe it's just you."

 

"Maybe." 

 

The prince's tone made Rin's gaze dart from where it'd been trailing over the iridescence of the blue-glass that hung from every window, to his royal counterpart's face. But whatever expression had companion to his voice in that brief second of tenderness had faded with its echo, and what the two figments of a soul shared instead was a beat of awkward silence, the background rustle of coconut palms and the lazy shift of sand suddenly deafening. 

 

"…Is that gold?" Rin scrambled at what he could to fill the chasmal hollow left by missing words, motioning to the wrought bedstead. 

 

The prince merely answered with a _look,_ one what said _what do you think plebeian,_ but then he clapped his hands and called out. 

"Nagisa!"

 

_Nagisa?_

 

_"Kya hukum, shehenshah?"_

 

For a moment, Rin's only thought was _woah that's a pretty girl._

 

Well, it _was_ until his eyes traveled south, beyond the limpid magenta eyes and the glimmering circlet crowning a mop of shiny golden hair, to take in the narrow physique and the bare, leanly muscled, distinctly _boobless_ chest. 

 

 _Still, a boy with such delicate features, I wonder what his_ job _is._

 

"Rin, this is Nagisa, my personal attendant," the prince made an introductory gesture between then, and before the smirk creeping across Rin's back had time to fully materialize, quashed it. "And I know what you're thinking, and _no,_ it's not like that. He merely takes care of my dressage and does my odd jobs." 

 

 _"Nagisa,"_ he then turned to the blond, " _Yeh ab tumhare faraez hai. Iske baod-o-bash, tarzeen-o-araaish par tawajjoh karo, yun ki tum khud bhi hum donon mein se isko shanakht na kar sako."_

 

 _"_ He's going to dress you decently now," addressing Rin again, he reclined in the settee and closed his eyes, "so co-operate."

 

"I— I'm eighteen years old!" Rin spluttered in indignation. "Why do I need to be _dressed?"_

 

 _"_ You ask too many questions." 

 

Prince-Rin left his seat to walk over to Rin, guide him by the shoulder into a carved little wooden stool facing an aureate mirror. "Look." 

 

So Rin looked, and even his years of practice were hard-pressed to stifle the gasp that broke past his lips at the sight. 

 

He'd never really worried himself too much about his looks, considering them a means rather than an end, taking for a given that he was what could be construed as _attractive._ Only now did it hit him in one fell swoop what the loss of them entailed. 

 

Because his eyes just unveiled more destruction the further they travelled. From his matted, greasy hair down to his bloodshot eyes, huge and empty and carmine, from concave cheeks and dark smudges under them.

 

His gaze flickered away, but it couldn't unsee.

 

The pasty-pale skin. His lips nearly bitten through and bloody. Cheekbones protuberant, expression blank.

 

Ghastly.

 

And that was just his face. 

 

His _body…_ clad in nothing but a dirty, loosely knotted white sirwal, bandages falling askew, if he had to describe it in a word, he'd say _Frankenstein._

 

He couldn't help it, then, how the focus of his gaze instinctively found the prince. Pristine. Untarnished. H _ealthy._ The stark contrast between what could have been and what was. And suddenly his vision blurred and his eyes began to sting.

 

 

Neither of them said a word as the tears traced their silent path down his burning cheeks. 

 

"Why…"

 

It was all he could muster, in a voice so far removed from his own that he barely recognized it. He didn't know what he was asking, much less how anyone was supposed to answer to this unprecedented, vehement assault of his own doing.

 

Neither did the prince, evidently, because it was a while before he answered.

 

"You were clawing at them when you were delirious,"  he said lowly, catching the direction of Rin's gaze. He made as if to trace over the stitches on Rin's arms _(and shoulder and abdomen and hip and thighs),_ but then evidently thought better of it, retracting his hand so it hovered awkwardly in the heavy air between them. "Made them a lot worse." 

 

Rin didn't know what to say to that, really, didn't think the prince would take kindly to being informed that they were, to some degree at least, intentional. 

 

Another awkward silence stretched between them before the prince, with a brief squeeze to his shoulder, turned away.

 

_"Khair, Nagisa, ab tumhara zimma."_

 

 

* * *

 

 

_"Ho gaya khatam~ Shehenshah-e-alam, ghour farmaiye!"_

 

Nagisa's excited— and _way too loud,_ in Rin's opinion— sing-songed interjection jerked Rin out of the stupor he'd sunk into sometime between having his hair washed and being rubbed with warm, scented oils. 

 

 _The exertion's taken more out of you than you think,_ he struggled to raise his head as Nagisa folded away the screen he'd conjured up as some excuse for modesty-preservation. He made to look in the mirror, but was speedily arrested by Nagisa's hands clapping over his eyes. 

 

_"Arrey arrey, itni jaldi kis baat ki hai, janab?"_

 

Rin jolted in shock, hand instinctively coming up to pry Nagisa's interceding fingers away. But his hand froze on the smaller one, and he sighed, removing it. He'd known the blond for all of, say, an hour, and he already sensed the imminent headache which would result out of pursuing any sort of argument with the five-foot weapon of mass destruction. So he gave over, let himself be turned this way and that— for the perusal of the prince, he supposed. 

It was not until a murmured conversation was exchanged, and a swish of fabric sounded that the hand over his eyes was lifted. Before his rapid blinking could adjust to the sudden onslaught of light, Nagisa had let the room in a cadence of rosy perfume and tinkling jewelry, and it was Rin who was standing behind him, meeting his dazed gaze in the mirror. 

 

_This is surreal._

 

Rin was staring at _himself,_ and his mind was blank. 

 

_This is surreal, and Nagisa is a magician._

 

Because it hit him for the first time, looking in that mirror, that the prince was him, too. Maybe a little healthier-looking, a little more built, a little more _happy,_ but him. 

 

And in that moment, it didn't _matter._

 

Didn't matter that he was a stray, a waif of the streets with no prospects and no future, _utterly kaput,_ and the other glittering, untouchable royalty. Because he was Rin and the prince was Rin, and they were two of the same people fighting their battles in the eternal struggle with, _against_ life in their different universes. 

 

Maybe some of his train of thought undulated across the screen of his eyes, because something rueful crept into the prince's expression before he looked away, wordlessly picking up a strip of emblazoned cloth and beginning to tie Rin's turban for him. 

 

There was a stretch then, of a piece of opalescence cut right from Time's gossamer cloak, of one of those restful silences which don't need to be filled with the inept, fumbling medium of words, of the insubstance of the _right thing to say;_ wherein Rin basked in the late-afternoon sunlight that filtered in  through the honeycombed windows, and looked his fill at himself as he'd once been. It was poignant and it was nostalgic, it put a bitter taste in Rin's mouth even as something sweet in its very fragility welled up in his chest. 

 

The prince could sense the heat of the gaze on him, Rin knew, but he steadfastly avoided meeting it with his own as he went through the motions of wrapping the cloth that smelled vaguely of old parchment and lilac round Rin's head. He kept his gaze trained there even as he broke the comfortable strangeness of that silence. 

 

"So, how about telling me what _really_ happened to you now?" 

 

 

 

_Oh, how the tables have turned._

Rin found the thought somewhere in the recesses of his mind as he jerked his head down to his trembling hands in the wake of that blankness that had his body flashing hot and cold and hot all at once. It was now the prince whose crimson gaze was looking right at him, burning holes even through the buffer of a mirror. 

 

"You… you know what happened," nails digging into his palms hard enough to draw blood, Rin fought with everything he had to keep his voice steady. "I was falling unconscious and then somehow ended up here."

 

_It's not a lie, at least._

 

"Liar."

 

Prince-Rin's gestures as they smoothed out his turban were completely relaxed, natural. Nothing belied the razor-edge in his voice.

 

_Well, it's another thing to cut yourself on, RinRin._

 

"You sound pretty sure for a guy who hasn't spoken twenty sentences to me in his life," and his acerbic retorts were at the ready again, his nails loosened from the gouges in his palm as he settled into the familiarity of this game. 

 

"Yeah, well, the delirious aren't reputed for being taciturn. Or liars, for that matter."

 

And there it was again. Rin's fists balled with renewed vigor. What was _it_ about this guy that always threw him? Maybe it was because he _was_ him, but the prince always, _always_ had him at a loss. 

 

"What did I say," his teeth were gritted so tightly at this point that the words came out muffled. 

 

"Not important. Point is, I want to know what happened to you. What made you say those things. I… want to know…," and for the first time, the biting sharpness of the prince's diction seemed to burn out into something more fiery, less… _controlled_. A fact only reasserted by the muted trembles Rin could feel racking his hands as he muttered the end of his sentence, so soft Rin barely caught it. "… _Sab kuch."_

 

_Fuck. Don't let him pull that vulnerable act on you just so he can satisfy his fucking curiosity._

 

"I'm sorry, _shehenshah,_ but that's one conundrum you'll have to figure out yourself. I'm not your lab specimen."  He hoped to all hell that his voice wasn't trembling, that his face wasn't giving anything away. 

 

He felt the prince's brief flash of anger in the tightening of his grip, he _felt_ the attempt he made to rein it in in its slow, deliberate loosening. This guy _seriously_ needed anger management lessons. 

 

_Well, if he does, then so do you._

 

"………….."

 

The prince's contemplative silence, which stretched on even after he'd got a hold on his temper, gave Rin all the confirmation he needed. He shook off the prince's grip, standing up and sending the stool clattering to the floor, turning to face himself head-on. 

 

"Do… you… _understand_ now?" he could barely get the words out for the chattering of his teeth, the angry flushing of his body. He had only just turned towards the door when the prince grabbed his arm, their twin gazes of burning crimson finally clashing in all their fire. 

 

"What are you _talking_ about?" to anyone watching, it would appear he spoke calmly. "Look, it'll just be more difficult for me if you don't resolve your issues and go back to your world," and he looked away again. "I'll be… troubled."

 

_He's bullshitting you, you idiot._

 

 _Do you_ want _to be used? Because it seems to me like you have a neon sign amber flashing over your head to that effect._

 

Another cutting retort was on his lips, but something in the prince's gaze, his _own_ gaze, made the words die in his throat. 

 

"I…" 

 

_No._

 

"…I'm…" 

 

_No no no NO NO NO NO_

 

"Rin—,"

 

" _Shehenshah!"_

 

A frenzied knock on the door was followed by an even more frenzied-looking Rei bursting in on them.

"Wha—," 

 

Rin didn't know who said it, but it opened the gates for a frantic exhortation, delivered with such speed that all Rin could catch of it were a few words, repeated with increasing urgency, _aab… jaadoo-tona…_

 

Whatever it was, it had to be pretty important, because the prince's brow furrowed, and his resultant frown remained even after he'd dismissed Rei and immediately begun dressing in what Rin guessed were his 'prince' clothes. 

 

"I have to go," he threw over his shoulder as he pulled rings onto his fingers, daubed perfume at his neck. "Is there anything you need?"

 

"Not really," Rin scratched at then back of his neck. He was noticing, for the first time, the _finery_ of the prince's wardrobe. Nothing overstated, nothing heavy, but folds upon folds of pure chiffon, gossamer gauze that bespoke riches without adhering to the tradition of silks and satins, all playing the perfect complement to the regal, prideful way he carried himself. Anew, he felt increasingly shabby by comparison."I just came to see you because I was, well. Bored."

 

_"Bored."_

And seriously, the _inflection_ the prince put on the word rivaled Rin's own assholery. He stared Rin down with his own deadpan, utterly unimpressed look for a solid moment before he sighed. 

 

"…Fine," he shrugged. "I'll send you a concubine. Or five. They'll ensure you're _well-occupied,_ all right."

 

" _No thanks,"_ Rin couldn't help the shudder that ran down his spine at the offer. "Maybe just… a companion?"

"I see," the corner of the prince's mouth twitched up in a smile. "Very well. Nagisa will do the needful."

 

"Of _all the people in this accursed town—"_

 

"—Why do you have to have him?" And was the prince actually, honest-to-god _smiling_ as he finished the sentence? "Well, he may not seem like your type at first, but he's a good guy, I assure you."

 

And with that, the prince swept out of the room, leaving Rin alone with himself and a vague sense of malcontented purpose.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PRINCE RIN TYING A TURBAN FOR RIN IS GOALS OKAY. 
> 
> As usual, heeere are the translations for this chapter:
> 
> "Maaf kijiye janab, lekin hum mein se kisi ko is dehleez ke paar quadam rakhne ki ijazat nahin hai. Isse aage aapko akele, apne tawajjoh par jaana hoga. Ijazat chahta hoon." - Pardon me, sir, but none of us are allowed to cross this threshold. You'll have to proceed alone, at your own risk. I seek your permission (to leave.)
> 
> "KISNE JURRAT—," - Who dares— 
> 
> "Kya hukum, shehenshah?" - What is your will, emperor?
> 
> "Yeh ab tumhare faraez hai. Iske baod-o-bash, tarzeen-o-araaish par tawajjoh karo, yun ki tum khud bhi hum donon mein se isko shanakht na kar sako." - He is now your responsibility. Take care of him, his living, his dress. Make it so that even you can't tell us apart.
> 
> "Khair, Nagisa, ab tumhara zimma." - Anyway, Nagisa, he's all yours.
> 
> "Ho gaya khatam~ Shehenshah-e-alam, ghour farmaiye!" - All done~ Look, Emperor!
> 
> "Arrey arrey, itni jaldi kis baat ki hai, janab?" - "Uh uh, what's the hurry, sir?"
> 
> "…Sab kuch." - …Everything
> 
> aab… jaadoo-tona… - water… witchcraft...


	6. Channel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The real question is why, just why is it so hard to trust? And the walls we build up around ourselves, the bulwarks, the embankments of our personality, are they necessary in this cruel, cruel world?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OkAy SORRY I HAVEN'T UPDATED IN 92017 YEARS BUT HEEERE IT IS. I dont'the even know how long this is because I wrote it out on sheets of paper because I lost my writing book. (Yes I still write in notebooks XD) 
> 
> ANYWAY. Important point now. 
> 
> It's that I'may going on vacatiooooonnnn, which is good for me but no so much for this story. Basically I'll be able to update earliest by mid-June xc 
> 
> But don't let that spoil your enjoyment of this chapter! Enjoyyy!

_“Rin… kahan… hai?”_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The words, uttered in halting Urdu, drifted through the tepid air of the room from where Rin was sprawled out on the bed, tracing patterns into the dust motes speckled through the strip of afternoon sunlight that filtered in from between the gauze curtains.  

 

  
_“Pata nahin, janab! Shehenshah-e-alam aaj-kal bahut masroofiyaat se ghire hue_ _hain. Lekin aapne unka khayal kiya, yehi bahut khushi ki baat hai!”_

This reply to the question that had been more to himself than to anyone else, was almost instantaneous, and Rin languidly raised his head to bring into view the pretty, giggling blond who sat on the floor at his bedstead.

 

_Oh, right. Him._

 

The fair hair and the burnished skin he’d grown accustomed to in the intervening months, but that happy-go-lucky, carefree attitude of Nagisa’s still set his teeth on edge and left him with all-too-frequent headaches.  

 

  
_But,_ he considered, as he skimmed the blond over, as the prince had said, he’d grown kind of used to it. Initially, what with Nagisa’s limpid, girlish figure and feminine features, he’d been wary of in actuality having had a concubine foisted upon himself, but the way he seemed to altogether disappear at times and then return an hour later, flushed and almost _glowing,_ well… it took care of _that_ worry.

Either way, if you’d asked him two months ago what kind of companion he wanted, someone of Nagisa’s description would not even have figured in the far reaches of his list. And yet, now he’d grown accustomed to the near-constant boisterousness. If he was pressed, he’d even go so far as to say he didn’t… altogether _dislike_ the blond’s presence. It entertained him, if nothing else, and kept him from thinking too much about himself… _both_ of himself.

 

Because he’d had little word from the prince for a long while, save for meticulous weekly Japanese-to-Urdu lesson notes and the occasional, hastily-penned line. From what Rin could gather from his one-sided conversations with Nagisa, the prince was almost constantly away to resolve some important diplomatic issue that’d cropped up.  

Truth be told, though, Rin did not… _miss_ him, in any sordid sense of the word. His days passed in a whirlwind of the new and exciting; prismatic undulations of storybook scenes of markets, old, crumbling minarets, sword practice, everything colourful as a piece of fairy glass in the sun; from the brilliant gold-glint of the sun off his sword handle to the rose cadence of dances and the swirling of the white-smoke hookah.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rin sighed, tugged at the string which moved the fan shading them from the worst of the midday sun.  

“ _Woh… kya kaam?”_

 

He made his best attempt at bad Urdu, hoping that Nagisa had enough functioning brain cells to parse his meaning anyway and tell him just what the fuck that asshole prince was doing. A wave of irritation passed over him when Nagisa shook his head. It lingered even after he followed it up with _maloom nahin, janab, yeh bahut khoofiya_ _hai._

 

“Rin,” he sighed, tuning the rest of Nagisa’s explanation out. “What am I—,”

 

The primadonna-esque effect of his interjection was rather ruined by a sharp knock at the door, followed by the entrance of Rei, who simply gave Rin a low bow, muttered something too low for him to make out to Nagisa, and left just as abruptly as he’d come.  

 

“What.”

 

Ever since turning up here, Rin had quickly learned that surprise was an emotion which would probably only lead to his early demise, so his question was no question at all. And Nagisa evidently understood it as such, because he only responded with a giggle and the sorry stock of Japanese he’d managed to pick up from Rin.  

 

“Come.”

“Come where.”  

 

But Nagisa just flashed a conspiratorial grin at his deadpan response and set off towards the door.  

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_“Fuck,”_ it was all Rin could breathe out. “You’d be _so_ screwed by income tax audits if this was real.”

 

“I’m just as real as you are,” the prince replied irritably from beside him. “And what’s an _income tax audit?”_

 

Ron chose to ignore him in favor of feasting his eyes on the huge, no,  _enormous,_ body of water in front of him. Any and all questions he’d had about the prince’s whereabouts for the past two months had fleeted to air, died on his lips the moment he sighted the oasis, the sheer  _size_ and splendor of it seeming to draw him in. Seriously, he knew he should have expected as much from his brief, veiled glimpse of the forbidding, leviathan, carved marble gates barricading it, somehow beautiful in their very majesty, but _still._ A sparkling-clean oasis of this size in the middle of the desert could only be…

 

“My private oasis,” Prince-Rin gestured proudly. Now that Rin was actually looking at him, his flamboyant air had not changed, but he looked decidedly thinner, almost… _haggard_ , as if he’d not been eating or sleeping well.  

 

“Fuck.” Rin was vaguely reminded of a skipping record, but what was one to muster up when their face was shoved into a veritable deluge of revelation? “You’re the reason why _Das Kapital_ was written.”  

 

“Fuck off,” the prince waved aside his witticism, “and come with me.”

 

Rin had been too enthralled watching the sun shimmer off the gently lapping waves,the patterns the tree-shade cast upon it, to notice much else, but now that they were getting closer, there was unmistakably a dark haired figure floating silent upon the waves, seemingly without a care in the world. Just who on earth was important enough to receive such unbridled access to the prince’s treasure, Rin didn’t know, but he sure intended to find out.  

 

“Oi, you,” the prince called when they were at the edge of the oasis, the water just barely pooling at their ankles, and the mystery guy just languorously got to his feet and turned, regarding them impassively.  

 

 

 

 

 And Rin froze.

 

 

 

 

Because for the brief second that their eyes had met, a bolt of electricity too strong, too _new_ to be déja vu raced through him, making his hair stand on end and his eyes widen. It was as if that electric blue was the essence of a thousand crystallised memories not yet made, as if the name that accompanied them, the cadence of two ringing syllables, lingered somewhere at the outside edge of his recall, _just_ out of reach.

 

And then his eyes flitted away from Rin’s, and the moment was gone.  

 

“Rin, this is Haruka— he goes by Haru,” and Rin fought the urge to say _I know,_ because he’d never met the guy before but he _did_ know, knew that he could never be called anything else.  

 

The strange guy— _Haru—_ said nothing, just motioned to Rin to get in the water.

 

“Wha— _why?”_ Rin tried to ask, but the prince just gave him a little shove, hissing out a  _just go._

 

And Rin wanted to ask some more questions, he really did, but then Haru ( _Haru)_ grabbed his arm, and everything went silent.  

 

Everything went silent, and all Rin could hear, could _feel,_ was a rush much like a crashing, flowing wave, much like the passage of something, _something between them_. And Rin suddenly wanted to tear his hand away, go far from this mysterious stranger with the unnerving eyes and this terrifying aura of calm power about him.

 

Harika evidently perceived some of Rin’s knee-jerk flight reaction in the set of his jaw and the tension in his muscles, because he gripped his arm tighter, looked right at him, locked him down in bottomless sapphire.  

 

“Relax.”

 

It was all he said.

 

 

 

 

It was all he said, but the shock of that voice sent another blitzkrieg of phantom remembrance shuddering down his spine, freezing his eyes wide, rooting him to the spot.  

 

 

 

 

And Haruka must have felt it too, the sudden white-hot shock of the electricity between them, because his gaze flickered for a moment, and he dropped Rin’s hand as if he’d been burned.  

 

 

A long moment passed without any of them saying anything, the only sound the calling of desert birds, the lazy rustle of date palms. Rin felt the silence grow, thicken until its oppressive cloud was pressing down over them, threatening to crush him.

 

“Who… are you?”  

It was a strangled whisper when words finally found his throat, but it was better than prolonging that sepulchral silence. At the very least, it shook Haruka out of whatever reverie he’d fallen into, enough to shoot him a disparaging look.  

 

“I do believe the prince has already introduced us. It’s Haru.”

 

And credit be to him, he didn’t even look  _surprised,_ being faced with two of the same person.

 

  
_“Haru,”_ Rin repeated dreamily. The name felt strange on his tongue, foreign and familiar and new and ancient all at the same time. He let himself float in the paradox for a weightless moment before he shook himself out of it, because a dream didn’t answer his question. “No, I mean. What is it you do?”

 

“I’m a dream merchant. I sell dreams,” his expression remained as unruffled as evereven as he made a claim no self-respecting member of society would ever. “And I specialise in water magic.”  

 

“A dream merchant who specialises in water magic.”

Rin was starting to feel faint. These kinds of shocks were _not_ prolonging his lifespan. And he was only just registering the connotation, but the guy spoke perfect Japanese, to add to the ridiculousness of this whole situation. Heavily accented as it might be, but flawless.  

The whole water magician thing, it was all a crock of shit, _it had to be,_ but… Haruka. 

 

_Haruka._

 

 

 

He had this _presence_ about him, which bespoke of things powerful and untold, a far cry from the kingdom's street magicians who sold colourful powders, tossed them into the air chanting bogus incantations in the name of magic. If there was one person in this world who _could_ be magical and mystic and everything he’d ever dreamt of, it was…

 

“How do you know Japanese?” fuck, fuck, clear head, _clear head_ and say anything which isn’t _what the fuck are you get out of my oasis._

 

“I travel,” and Haruka’s voice somehow managed to soothe Rin’s overdriving thoughts, directing them once again into the safer trajectory of _wow this guy really is something_. “A lot.”

 

Rin didn’t know what to say to that, really, but for once, Haruka took the initiative; albeit by beginning to walk towards the edge of the oasis without a word to anyone.  

 

“Oi, _wait—,”_ Rin called after him, and just sighed when Haruka tossed a _see me in_ _my chamber_ after him. He was surprised at himself for finding the response familiar, expected even, but he was more thunderstruck at the _prince,_ who let him go without a word of protest, making no move to stop his departure.  

 

“…Just what is with you and that guy?” Haruka was barely out of earshot before Rin let fly at the prince with the million and one questions he had.  

 

“Don’t even ask,” Prince-Rin replied shortly, putting his long, elegant fingertips to his temples to massage away the headache Rin felt building behind his own eyes. “I’ve had it up to _here_ with him.”

 

“So why don’t you, like, do one of the things Arabian princes do when they’re pissed off?” the solution seemed fairly obvious to Rin. “Just get rid of him.”  

 

“You—,” the prince looked just about ready to actually slug him one in his frustration,and Rin took a cautionary step back just in case. But he seemed to get it under control in a few deep breaths, instead answering Rin through gritted teeth. “He’s a _magician,_ you blithering idiot. You have no idea of the torture I’ve had to undergo for the past two months, what with negotiations with the  _fucking asshat_ Sultan of Afghanistan who thinks I’m imprecating his kingdom on one hand, and _this guy on the_  other.”

 

“Um… and so?” Rin raised a skeptical eyebrow at the prince. He somehow wanted to though him, go hug him with how vulnerable, how _young_ he looked in the moment, or at least clap his shoulder, tell him it was all going to work out fine because he was not _weak._

 

 

_Not passive._

 

 

 

  
_Not like you._

 

“How exactly does recapturing a magician from the fucking-asshat-sultan-of-Afghanistan help?”  

 

God, he needed to get a grip on himself _get a grip get a grip get a fucking grip_ _before—_

 

“So we can figure out a way to get you back to your world, of course.”

 

 

 

 

 

  
_Blank._

 

 

 

 

 

For a moment, Rin couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think _._

 

 

Logically, he knew that this the way it was meant to be. That he was endangering both himself and the prince by prolonging his stay in the kingdom. That this was going to happen one day. That one day, the prince was going to figure out a way to put everything right.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Except that nothing about this felt _right._

 

Somewhere, somewhere, Rin could hear a faint, faint voice pointing out that it was for the best if everyone was back where they belonged, that the Universe had an order for a _reason,_ but it was evanescent, fading, fast obliterated by the howling of _no no no I don’t want to leave no think of a way think of a way to stay._

 

“Are— are you— I mean, magic… is a very dodgy branch of expertise, innit?” he was grasping at straws here, he knew, but  _anything_ that could give the prince pause for thought. “How do you know you can trust him?”

 

To his surprise, the prince only half-smiled at him, eyes lighting up like an excited child’s. “You’re saying that because you’ve never actually seen his water magic. It’s… _impossible._ And—,” he paused, as if considering something, his cheeks flushing faintly.  

 

“And what?”

 

“Well— _man_ this is going to sound stupid— but I mean… when he touched me, I felt something, okay? I felt something pass between us.”  

 

He turned his head at the end of his outburst, fixing his gaze firmly at a spot beside Rin’s head.

 

“…Me too,” and Rin was sure his face was as red as the prince’s by now.

 

An awkward moment passed between them, then, with both of them avoiding each other’s eyes, until,

 

“I’ll miss you, I guess.”

 

It was such a low mutter that Rin barely caught it, but he _did_ catch it, couldn’t _not_ have caught it with the way the prince’s blush rivalled the colour of his hair, with the way he suddenly began to shift as if uncomfortable in his own skin.

And it gave him all the impetus he needed.

In one, two strides he was out of the oasis, across the sandy stretch that separated them, across the bulwarks they’d built up around themselves, and gathering the prince into a tight embrace.

And his hands came up, at first, to grip Rin’s arms as if to push him away, to ask him what the hell was wrong with him, but then Rin squeezed tighter and the fight went out of him, arms instead wrapping around Rin’s shoulders, returning the contact. He faintly felt the prince bury his face into his hair.

 

 

 

This was, Rin was only now realizing, his first conscious, meaningful contact with the prince, the first time a maelstrom of things unsaid had passed between them through the medium of touch and touch alone. So they let the moment run its course, lingering and flute-fragile, until it broke in a cascade of sparks.  

 

  
_Come, let’s go._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Haruka’s room was much like him— unnerving in the very dark calmness, the simple tastefulness of its navy-blue drapery. Its occupant had taken one sweeping look at the pair of them upon their arrival and pointed them to a settee, disappearing behind a curtain amidst Prince-Rin’s grumbles of _this has to be the first time a prince_ _has been summoned into someone else’s chamber._ Rin just tuned him out, attention held by said curtain, which seemed to glimmer iridescent in the late-afternoon sun, crimson-carmine and electric-blue and forest-green and rose-pink and magic purple all at once.

 

He— both of them— were beginning to get antsy when Haruka finally returned, bearing two vials swirling with strange fumes, one red, one gold.  

 

“Take this,” he handed the smoky red to Rin, who for once was lost for words, just turning it around in his fingers in wonder. “Inhale this before you go to sleep tonight.The dream you have will bear the solution to your predicament.”

 

“And the other one?”  

 

Truth be told, Rin was much more interested in the prettier bottle, rather than the one that would send him back to the hell in which he _belonged._

 

 

 

Haruka frowned. “Don’t meddle in things that are not your business. That’s for him,” motioning to the prince.

 

“For me?” the prince looked as stunned as Rin felt. “I don’t need any— goddamn dream tonic!”

 

“We can all do with some good dreams.”

Haruka’s face was as expressionless as ever when he said it, but his eyes betrayed almost wistfulness. Really, Rin couldn’t make _head or tail_ of this guy.

 

“Anyway. Later."

 

He tossed the bottle to the prince, who in his surprise, caught it, and turned on his heel, exiting the room like the whisper of a shadow.  

 

“Hey— wait!” his departure lent a sudden kinesis to Rin's frozen limbs, and he hightailed it out of the room after Haruka.

 

“Oi, wait— _wait,”_ he finally caught up to him halfway down the hallway. There were so many things he wanted to ask, so _many,_ but when Haruka turned the force of that gaze on him, deja vu but _not,_ there remained only one. One thing he remembered, one thing he needed to say, the words his own but not.  

 

“Wanna swim?”  

 

And it was so _natural_ for him to follow in hot pursuit when Haruka just took off down the hallway by way of an answer.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation:  
> "Rin... kahan... hai?" - where is Rin? 
> 
> I'll try and write some on vacation I pwomise x3


	7. Precipice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, and don't things have to come to a head?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI HI HI OMF I HOPE YOU HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN I EXIST. Because I do, and here I'm updating. My vacation was amazing, and expect a chapter entirely on pictures of their their jewels and stuff soon.
> 
> WARNING: I wrote this chapter in ONE DAY. Also you MUST listen to the My Little Pony friendship song before reading this chapter.

_“_ _Yeh_ _to…_ khwaab  _hain.”_  

 

Makoto’s wondering, awed whisper was the only sound to cast a ripple in the silence that pervaded the little circle that had formed in Rin’s room. Just as dusk had cast a witching violet shadow over the burnished copper of the sun, just as the mysterious not-quite stranger had melted into its shadows, Rin’s chamber had come alive with the banter of the motley crew that convened there most evenings. And then the prince had arrived, and it had all fallen silent. 

When he'd produced the vials, the silence had turned deathly. 

 

And it stretched on, now even Nagisa serious for once. Everyone wary in the face of the strange swirling mist. Rin didn't know what to say to alleviate the opressive mood. Wasn't sure he could if he wanted to.

 

The prince clicked his tongue impatiently.  

 

 _“Haan, Makoto, hamein maloom h_ _ai,”_  and something in Rin’s chest unclenched at that. “ _Hamein yeh jaanne ki khwahish hai ki inka hum donon par asar kya padega.”_  

 

Rin had by then found it in himself to raise an eyebrow at the prince. “You  _do_  realize I don’t understand any of this, right?”  

 

The prince  _would_ have sighed and then probably given Rin a translation, along with a couple insults about his lack of cognitive faculties, he was sure, but he was interrupted by Nagisa. 

 

“ _Jahanpanah, iska jawaab to bada hi mukhtasar sa hai!”_ he chirped, back to normal. “ _Yeh aapko khwaab_ _diklayega!”_  

 

The prince did sigh now, much to Rin’s amusement, muttered a _can I have people put to death for being dumb,_ but he could have sworn he saw a smile flicker across his face before he turned his attention back on him. While Rei said something to Nagisa in an exasperated tone that bespoke of many similar previous conversations between them. 

“Not much worth understanding there. Makoto was just being his doe-eyed self about how those vials are  _khwaab—_ that’s dream— and me asking the  _only_ sensible question about how they’re going to affect us. And then Nagisa chimes in with  _that’s obvious they’re going to make you dream_ and Rei lays into him. Basically a bunch of idiots being a bunch of idiots.” 

 

Rin sniggered at the prince’s overly high-pitched imitation of Nagisa’s voice, but the prince had already turned to the rest of them, stopping Nagisa and Rei’s bickering with a raise of his hand.  

 

“ _Makoto,”_ and his tone was long-suffering, “ _Batao hamein.”_  

 

 _“Jahanpanah,”_ Makoto bowed his head,  _“Hamare quayas mein, do qism ke khwaab hote hain, lekin yeh to… kuch alag_ _hi hain.”_  

 

Prince-Rin put his fingers to his temples, silent for a bit. After an eternity, he exhaled, and Rin let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.  

 

“Well, it’s a gamble,” he flashed Rin a sudden, dazzling, sharp-toothed smile. “What do you say?”  

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Rin _didn’t know_ how he’d ended up here, long after the purple-blue of dusk had given way to the pitch of night, but here he was. Long after everyone had left, sitting on his bed beside the prince, the vials and the shimmery vapor in them strangely blending right in where they occupied a place on his ornate nightstand. The both of them regarding them in silence, unsure before the actual fall.  

 

But unsurety didn't quite cover it.

 

It was what it was. Rin had always known that. But it had taken this fleeting eternity of watching the prince for him to understand it.

 

_It's up to you now._

 

And the very thought made his heartbeat accelerate. Nothing had ever been up to him before.

 

He hadn't ever let anything be. 

 

_And now?_

 

 

 

So here they were.  

 

Here they were, and he was  _still fucking afraid._  

 

“Hey,” he nudged the prince. Desperate, for once, to feel the contact. The sense that the prince was real and that he was _him_. “Didn’t it feel nice to actually hang out with friends for once?”  

 

“Friends…,” the prince rolled the word on his tongue like it was foreign. “I don’t know. It felt… weird.” 

 

“Admit it,” and Rin was grinning now. It was incredible how fast messing with the prince ratcheted up his mood. “You had no friends before I came here.”  

 

“That is  _not t—,”_  

 

“My little RinRin, my little RinRin, what is friendship all about~” 

 

The prince shoved him for that, pinning him down on the mattress. 

 

“Don’t—  _ever_ call me that again—,” he was  _trying_ to hold Rin down, but it was difficult considering that both of them were shaking with giggles. “—you  _bastard.”_  

 

He threw a weak punch at Rin, but he supposed he deserved that for singing the  _My Little Pony_ theme song to him. 

 

“Okay,  _okay,”_ he caught Prince-Rin’s hand in midair and straightened them up, a calm sort of recklessness taking hold of him. “The vials.”  

 

It was like he  _could_ do this now, now that he knew. Like that little intervening moment with himself had been what he needed. 

 

“Okay,” the prince grabbed both of them, handing the red one to Rin and uncorking the other himself. “On three.” 

 

“One, two, three, cheers.” 

 

 _Cheers._  

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 _A swish of red hair_  

 

 _A glint of gold_  

 

 _Tensing muscles_  

 

 _Spatters of white_  

 

 _Rin_... 

 

The scream that resounded through the chamber, it took a minute for Rin to recognize it as his.  

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Morning brings counsel.

 

_Bull fucking shit._

 

Because _fuck_ the glints of gold-dawn that snaked across the morning sky. The same _gold_ vividness of the images seemed seared onto the inside of his eyelids, for he saw them every time his eyes fell shut.  

 

_Twin redheads and sweat and a symphony of pleasure, breathy moans and nails against skin and sharp teeth_

 

 

 

 _What the fuck had Haruka given him?_  

 

Haruka.

 

Nagisa found him already awake and staring about with blank, bloodshot eyes when he came in to rouse him, and Rin could afford no reply to his worried, increasingly frantic questioning. He wasn’t even sure what he said, what language it was in, what he was going to do.

 

 _Haruka_ _._  

 

Like a zombie, like a demon with leaden resolve animating immobile limbs, he stumbled out of bed and trudged off in the direction of the oasis.  

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Oh, you bastard.”  

The sound left his lips in some distant world when the coolness of the blue water wasn't just beginning to lap at his feet, in a world where he wasn’t dazzled by the sunshine that seemed to burn away everything unclean and impure and  _him,_ where the water didn’t soothe at his wounds like the world’s most effective analgesic.  

 

In a world where everything brilliant and beautiful didn't exist, he did. 

But try, try as he might, he couldn't imagine Haruka into it. 

 

 _Because he belonged in the world of_ _beautiful things._  

 

And fuck, that made him  _angry._  

 

And it was anger that blazed energy into his dragging feet, spark into his dull eyes, wrath into his aura as he strode through the water, his sodden pants clinging to his trembling legs as he reached the calm bubble that was Haruka, floating in the water like the Magi, all-knowing and entirely unruffled.

 

"Haru!"  

 

It came out louder than he'd intended it to, but he couldn't  _stop,_ suddenrage coursing through his blood as he grabbed the pale shoulders, fingers coming to wrap around his throat and squeezing-- 

\--And then Rin was being hurtled backwards, a sheet of water rising up above him, curling around his hands and feet to bind him securely in position despite his enraged struggles.  

 

"What the  _fuck--"_  

 

 _"--_ do you think you're doing?" Haruka, massaging his throat, completed his sentence, leveling him with a glare as he coughed. 

 

"You  _know_ what you did, you bastard, so let me  _go_ already--," Rin made another futile struggle against the liquid restraints. "And how did you even manage to tie me up with  _water?"_  

 

"What  _I_ did?" Haruka looked genuinely confused, brow furrowing. "As I remember it, it was  _you_ charging at me trying to choke me." 

 

"I don't mean that!" Rin kind of wanted to choke him again at that clueless answer, but his bonds were holding fast. "The  _dream,_ asshole!" 

 

 _"Oh,"_ his expression cleared in understanding. "The dream, huh?" 

 

" _Yes,_ the dream, you--," Rin scrambled about for a word magnanimous enough to direct at him. " _Motherfucker._ What were you thinking giving someone that kind of thing?"  

 

"What did it show you?," and was that a honest-to-god  _smirk_ dancing on his lips? 

 

"What do you mean what did it show me? You  _made_ the damn thing!" 

 

"Ah, but," and Haruka waved his hand and the water-ropes melted away, leaving a stunned Rin on his feet in the waist-deep water. " _I_ don't engineer what it shows you. That's why it's a special dream, made from the light of three moons. It shows you what  _you_ need." 

 

"What?," and the words came out as a strangled whisper.  

 

 _If that's true it mean...?_  

 

 _Yes, it does, you_ pervert.  

 

 _Ungrateful stain._  

 

 _Stain_ _stain_ _STAINSTAIN STAIN_  

 

 

 

 

"...see?" 

 

"Hmmmm?," it was a while before Rin realized that Haruka was asking him something. 

 

"I  _said,_ what did you see?" 

 

"Oh." 

 

 _O_ _h._  

 

"I...," there was  _no way_ he could ever allow the words to ever cross his lips. "Just... my dad. And stuff." 

 

"I see." 

 

Somehow, Rin got the feeling that Haruka didn't quite believe him. 

 

"...Well, I'll see you later, then."  

If he stayed here a moment longer, Rin was going to commit a fatal mistake, he knew it. And Haruka's searching eyes were  _not helping_ his uncomfortable conviction that he could read minds. 

But just as he'd turned to leave, a hand grabbed his arm.  

 

"Wait." 

 

And there it was again, that invasive, uncomfortable feeling. The feeling that something was passing between them, that Haruka was looking into the depths of his heart and mind and soul with those _eyes_ and that touch.  

 

And this time, it was Haruka who ripped his hand away as if it'd been burned.  

 

"What?"

Rin almost laughed out loud at his own attempt to re-introduce some semblance on normalcy into this conversation that was never meant to have been normal.  

 

"…Nothing," Rin turned around too late to see Haruka's expression, and whatever it had been had receded back into his customary stoic mask. Rin was about to shrug his shoulders and direct a profanity or five at him, maybe challenge him to a swimming race, when he sighted the prince coming up the slope opposite to the one he'd scaled that morning with his expression even blacker than usual.  

 

"Gotta go see you later bye," and with that pathetic excuse for coherent speech, ignored Haruka's puzzled look, turned around, and raced down the opposite slope as if the devil was after him. He knew it was a shitty façade, and that anyone with half a brain would figure it out in about three seconds, but he  _couldn't._ _Couldn't_ face the prince and look him in the eye, not now. 

 

Maybe not ever. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

And it was like fate was playing a cruel, twisted game with him, because these days, the prince seemed to seek out his company more than ever. More than Makoto, or Nagisa, or Rei, it was him. He seemed to bump into his doppelganger at every corner he turned.  

 

And he  _tried_ to keep his distance, tried to answer the prince's uncharacteristically long anecdotes with short, clipped answers, tried to avert his eyes, but the truth was, he was noticing things about the prince he'd never paid attention to before.  

Like the way his carmine hair was abundant, long and luscious, the way his bejewelled fingers were so long and graceful when they curled around the stem of a wineglass or the pipe of a hookah. 

 

The way his hips held a natural sway when he walked.  

 

The way his eyes were the most expressive part of him, lighting up when he was pleased and flashing dangerously when he was not.  

 

The way his robes always seemed to cling to him  _just right._  

 

Just the way the prince  _was._  

 

And it was  _horrible,_ because even if the prince went away, the dreams wouldn't. Nearly every night, he'd wake up screaming and half-hard, and Nagisa was at his wits' end as to what to do with him, especially as Rin had, in no uncertain terms, promised him dire consequences if he blabbed to the prince.  

 

The only place he could escape he crimson nightmare was in the cool azure of the water, and that was where he often went.  

And that was where Haruka was, drawn there perhaps by the same draw that pulled Rin to it, and there they met. 

 

There they met, and there they swam, scarcely talking but comfortable in the other's presence, even growing strangely accustomed to the pull towards each other, the things that passed unsaid between them at every brush of skin. The memory of the dream between them faded away into the bottomless sound of the blue, and Rin was content with that. 

 

And all through those blue, bitter and painful days they swam, like two fishes with nowhere to go in the sky under the sea.  

 

And it was the only solace he could find.  

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Until a day dawned, clear and mercilessly brilliant as any other, but one where Haruka wasn't in the oasis. 

 

The prince was.  

 

And Rin just stood there, motionless as a statue and rooted to the ground as he took in the prince's body, his  _own_ body, one he'd seen innumerable times before in the mirror, but somehow, different with droplets of water cascading down in, muscles strong and hard and bronzed from the sun. 

 

And traitorous body, he could  _feel_ it reacting, so before the prince could say anything, even call out a greeting, he turned, and he ran.  

 

 _YOU DISGUSTING FILTH_  

 

 _Room_ _room_ _get into the room_  

 

 _UNGRATEFUL STAIN_  

 

 _C_ _lose the_ _door_ _close the door close the door_  

 

 _DIE WHY DIDN'T YOU DIE WHY_ _WHY_ _WHY_  

 

 _A_ _nd there are_ _tears_ _now tears_ _tears_ _wipe them_  

 

 _YOU DESERVE TO DIE_  

 

 _K_ _nif_ _e_ _dagger where_ _where_ _is it open the drawer_  

 

 _DIE..._ _Die..._ _die..._  

 

 

 

 _…_ _................................_  

 

 

And he didn't know whether he was laughing or crying as the blade bit into his flesh, but he  _did_ know that his head was clearing. With every gash that bit deeper into his skin, his head cleared, the force of that horrible, grating voice lessened. And he knew, he  _knew_ he was laughing now, loud, manic, blood dripping down the length of his arm and--- 

 

 _Crash._  

 

The door was flung open, nearly off its hinges, and the prince was standing in its way. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I'M SORRY RIN.
> 
> Also I don't think we need translations here because the prince already translated it, yeah? 
> 
> (This chapter was such an emotional rollercoaster I swear)
> 
> ((sorry I'm exhausted))


	8. Descent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's nothing like a perfect ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES HELLO HI IS THIS ANG UPDATING ABSURDLY EARLY? YES IT IS. 
> 
> THIS IS MY FAVORITE CHAPTER AND I HAVE MY FINGERS CROSSED FOR WHAT YOU GUYS THINK.

_Utter_

_Silence._

One could have heard a pin drop in the slurring time of the chamber as horrified carmine eyes stared into each other, each at a loss for what to say, neither even all _there_ in the disconnect of the moment. Utter silence, and then the prince’s eyes transitioned from horror to realisation, and his menacing whisper struck a ridge into it.

 

“Oh, you bastard.”

 

It was all he heard, caught the prince’s advance for the briefest second before his head was jerking back, pain blooming in his jaw.

 

_Did he just…?_

 

Before Rin could grasp what had just transpired, before he could even formulate the _thought_ , he was being shoved backwards. _Hard_.

 

“What—,” _shove_ “the _fuck_ —,” _shove_ “do you think—,” _shove_ “you’re doing?”

He was up against the wall now, head thudding painfully against it, forced to stare right into the prince’s livid eyes, at an expression of his he never wanted to see again.

 

“ _Wh—_!”

He was cut off as the prince slapped him in the face, slapped him hard enough that blood pooled in his mouth.

 

“ _Shut up,”_ and his hands descended to Rin’s throat, then, squeezing hard so that his vision spotted with black, so that the prince’s steadily amplifying voice was the only sound he could hear over the roar of blood in his ears. “How _dare_ you do this, befoul your body— _my_ body—,”

 

And even though the prince’s hands were digging bruises into his neck, even though his breath was coming ragged and his vision steadily dissolving into pitch, he had enough left of himself to _snap_.

Had enough left to spit the blood in his mouth in the prince’s face, take advantage of his momentary distraction to kick his legs out from under him, adrenaline and pain screaming like a siren through his veins as he barely stopped to rub at his throat before pressing his entire body weight down on the prince.

 

“ _Fuck_ you—,” and he could _feel_ it, his retreat into that dark recess of his mind where primal instinct, hedonism reigned supreme, the one he was _afraid_ of, because the hand he raised to the prince then was not his own, that fist that it curled into, that levelled a hit to the prince’s face was _not his own_. “ _Fuck you—_ ,”

  
And Rin couldn’t stop. He was hitting the prince, hitting him and hitting him _and hitting him_ — _you don’t care about anything but that, you don’t care about_ me—

— Until a foot was hooked around his ankle and his world flipped over, until the pain in his jaw seared through afresh at another hit, the prince’s blood dripping down onto his face, his own snaking a trail out of his mouth to the floor.

 

Until soft, bruised lips were covering his own.

 

The warm, unexpected pressure stunned him enough to think, _think_ in that place he couldn’t chase his mind into, his heart suddenly constricting painfully inside his chest.

  
And then a vicious bite split his lip open, and Rin tore the prince away from himself by the hair with a pained grunt and a smirk.

 

_Two can play at that game._

 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He tossed the prince’s words from before back at him with a sneer.

“Shut. _Up_.” Prince-Rin’s expression still burned into his flesh, but it had shifted to some different essence of it as he bent to kiss Rin again.

 

And he knew he should put up a fight, should push the prince away and make an effort to salvage what was left of them. Any sane person would.

 

_But who has ever called you sane?_

 

And so all his fight went into returning that kiss, bite for savage bite, mind gone and fugged with anger and pain and arousal and the goodness-knows- _what_ of every bitter pill he’d ever had to swallow. And he was burning _up_ in it, in the messy clash of teeth and tongues tinged with the coppery tang of blood, in the unthinking wandering of bruising, clumsy hands and stinging bites to the neck and the dull throb that came from he didn't know where.

 

 

They disengaged in a gasping intermingling of saliva and breath and blood, and the prince was smearing a trail of that viscous mixture _down_ , down Rin’s bared neck and chest and oh _god why was that so ungodly hot._

 

Rin was startled out of his daze by a brushing of lips, surprisingly gentle, over his flushed chest, down his sternum. The sensation filled him with unease as he reciprocated anyway, petting at the prince’s hair until— sure enough— he was being flipped over, onto his chest, with an unceremonious _thud_ , the roughness all the more jarring in contrast.

 

The prince’s raked his nails down Rin’s back as he pinned his arms behind him, leaning forward to whisper in his ear.

“You don’t have to do this to _yourself_.”

 

Rin could barely believe the low murmur that he heard, heart thudding dangerously fast in his chest as he tried to crane his neck around to look the prince in the eye—

— and a searing pain shot up his arm, pure, unadulterated, white-hot, building and building till a scream forced its way past his lips.

 

“ _Aaaah_!”

 

“That’s better,” the prince left off where he’d been digging his nails into Rin’s fresh, unhealed cuts, removing his fingers and smearing the blood across Rin’s cheek. “You want pain, motherfucker? I’ll give you pain.”

 

Any impending retort Rin had was smothered by the prince’s fingers as they shoved their way into his mouth, scraping at the back of his throat, making him gag as the prince bit down viciously on the back of his neck.

“How _dare_ you,” he hissed as his fingers fucked their way in and out of Rin’s mouth, making his eyes water, making him whimper ineffectually against the intrusions. “How dare you turn up here, in my kingdom, half-dead because of _what you did to yourself_ and then fucking _lie_ to me about it? _Shit_ —,” he wrenched Rin’s head around so he could slap him again, yanking his fingers out of his mouth, Rin almost crying out at the hurt of it.

 

“I never lied to you— _Rinnn_!” He spat out, voice breaking at the end when the prince shoved two fingers past his rim without preamble. It hurt, it did— _fuck_ he hadn’t even bothered to take his rings off— but this insanity that had possessed him now wasn’t ashamed to admit the swelling of his arousal, the blurring of his vision at it.

 

“Oh yes you did,” Prince-Rin scissored his fingers brutally, making Rin gasp at the stretch, at the irregular shapes of the rings brushing _that_ spot inside him. “ _Lied_ to me about getting those injuries in a fight—“

 

“It wasn’t a lie.”

 

It was all Rin said, satisfied as his words brought the prince’s ministrations to a halt for a brief moment as he parsed his meaning.

 

" _You_...,” it wasn’t even a whisper any more, it was a growl, rumbling up from somewhere deep in his throat before he shoved two more fingers inside him with renewed vehemence. Rin hissed at the sting, shut his eyes, and desperately wished he could shut, in turn, the prose of his skin that registered something beyond raw anger in the prince's renewed motions; shut his ears that only registered the prince’s choppy breathing, multiplied a thousandfold by its proximity to his ear, by his new hypersensitivity to everything the prince said or did.

 

And now, he’d hardly noticed it in the in the maelstrom of inopportune thought he’d found himself in, but the prince’s fingers were gone, instead replaced by a feverish, blunt pressure at his entrance.

“ _Wait_ —,” and there it was, a figment of _Rin_ , gaping through a chink in the insanity, but it was too little, too late.

“In your own charming set phrase, _fuck you.”_

 

And then the prince was forcing his way inside— _forcing_ the only word for it as the overhead lamps seemed to flicker in that moment of fresh, brilliant pain which shot up his spine, as the deep ache wrenched out something between a moan and a sigh from him.

 

“ _Aaaahnn—!”_

 

“Yeah?”

Rin can’t see the prince, but he’s sure in that moment that his eyes are the same smouldering shade of rage and… _something,_ that had been haunting his sleepless nights for so many moons. He just _knew_ , what with that excruciating, aggrandizing feeling of there being something _more_ behind each violent thrust than sheer, empty rage, that this was not just about him any more.

 

Perhaps it never had been.

 

 

 

 

_Drip_

 

 _Is it sweat?_  
The prince’s punching thrusts were reducing him to incoherency, blood was dripping to the floor from stray wounds the prince had left on him with his own sharp teeth; but he still had enough to register the warm rivulets dripping down his back.

 

_Drip_

 

And yet, maybe it was because he was _him_ and so was the prince, or because of the low, broken sound the prince emitted on a particularly deep thrust, Rin knew, without even looking back, that it wasn’t sweat.

 

 

The prince fucked him like an animal, without finesse or rhythm, one hand thumbing messily at hi cock, making him keen, while the other yanked at his hair, his nipples. And Rin could do nothing but moan, let himself be played as the prince toyed at all his sensitive spots through long-ingrained instinct, just a little too rough for comfort.

 

And Rin _loved_ it.

 

 _Loved_ the burning stretch of it every time the prince pulled out, almost all the way, before slamming back in. Loved the heady pain of the pull at his hair, the bite at his pulse point, the tug at his nipple. Vaguely, as though through a thick fog, it came to him.

 

_He could hurt like this all his life and be blissfully happyyyyy…._

 

The end of his thought slurred into nothingness at the prince hit the spot inside of him the reduced his vision to a blur of carmine-gold, tore noises out of his mouth his sane self would be mortified at. It hurt so much, was so deep— and— _any moment now—_

 

As if on cue, the tears that had been pricking at his eyes fulfilled their threat of spillage, tracking paths down his cheeks in a heaving sob. He felt the prince tense at that before he pulled spasmodically out.

 

" _What_ —,” before Rin could voice his confusion, he was being flipped around, flipped around to stare right into the prince’s beautiful, bruised face and eyes shimmering with tears for a split second before being kissed, _kissed_ as he was re-entered roughly.

 

"Nnnngh… _please_ …,” Rin threw his head back at that, the involuntary moan leaving his mouth as the fullness he’d begun craving without even realizing it returned.

 

A hand jerked his chin forward roughly.

 

“ _Look_ at me,” and the command was so imperious that Rin complied almost without knowing it. “See what you do to me?”

 

And time ran as if through honey, languid and golden and sweet between the slide of their bodies, the slickness of sweat and the stickiness of blood as Rin looked at his own face— his own face brilliant with diamond-drops of tears, his own face with a high flush running on his cheeks as they just _looked_ at each other, each tracing soft, wondering fingers over the other, identical face.

 

And then the prince sped up.

 

“ _Ahn_!”

Had Rin always been this good in bed? A smirk curled at his lips, speedily wiped off when the prince hit his prostate again. The coil of heat was steadily building in his belly, and the prince was not far behind, thrusts coming even more choppy and sporadic, building him up, up, _up_.

 

And in the furious heat of their race to completion, Rin could swear he felt the prince’s body shake with sobs, just as his own had done just a little while ago, a single question on his lips as he spent himself inside of Rin.

 

_Why, why, whyyyy?_

 

“Nnngh, _Rin_!”

  
His own body was giving over too, now, vision tunnelling to black and green as every muscle in his body tensed, affording an answer to his own question as it arched and shuddered in climax.

 

_Because I am like this._

 

 

 

 

As the orgasmic haze faded, as Rin found his scrambled wits again, all he felt was a comfortable sleepiness overcoming him even as the prince’s dick slipped out of him and his come began trickling down. Almost unthinkingly, he snuggled closer to the prince.

Who jerked away as if he’d been burned.

 

“Don’t touch me.”

And that terrible, distant, disgusted tone. It was so familiar.

 

_Don’t touch me!_

 

_You’re no son of mine._

 

_You stain. You stain to the Matsuoka name._

 

_Slut._

 

_Whore._

 

_Killer!_

 

_KI-LLER, KI-LLER, KI-LLER_

 

_“Stop!”_

And the dark insanity, the calm madness that had possessed him was receding fast and inexorable like an ocean wave even as he tried to clutch at the water-insubstance in desperation. But it was futile, it was _leaving_ , leaving him to his shivering, naked, vulnerable self, Rin with his fears and his hatred and his terror of sex.

 

_What have you_

_DONE_

 

“No, no _nonononono_ ,” and when his blurring eyes flickered open again, it was to the prince’s retreating back.

 

And suddenly he wasn’t _there_ any more.

 

He was in his mind’s cage, the walls that wouldn’t let him see the light. No matter what he did, all he would see were backs. His mother, his sister and his friends, all with their backs to them no matter _what_ he did to make them see _him_.

 

“NO NO NO—,”

 

_I can’t live with you any more._

 

“I’m sorry, I’m _sorry_ , _I’m_ —,”

 

 _This isn’t your home any more, you_ stain.

 

“I’ll be a better son, I promise! Mother, please, _please_ don’t leave me!”

 

 

Something grabbed his arm.

“Don’t you dare take me away again!” He thrashed wildly, trying to shake off the grip. “I won’t go, I won’t _I won’t_!”

 

“…n—,”

 

“Stop it!” He fought harder to shake off the hands, the nails raking at his skin, taking him away to shut him up again. “Stop it stop it STOP IT!”

 

“Rin!”

 

A flash of pain and his vision cleared, the devouring ghosts receding into the walls. The prince had just slapped his face, and was now cupping it tight between both his hands.

 

" _Listen to me,_ Rin,” and there was that voice again, so wilful that it even halted Rin’s delirious babbling. “Listen. To. Me.”

 

"Nnnnn..." Rin's head was aching. His whole body throbbed where he’d curled up into a ball, and he was starting to feel the places he’d been hit.

 

"You're not a stain. You're _Rin_. You’re me. Do I look like a stain to you?”

 

Rin just shook his head mutely, struck speechless by the prince’s Jekyll-and-Hyde persona.

 

“Exactly. You aren’t there, you’re here with me, do you understand?”

 

Another mute nod, and the prince looked at him inscrutably for a moment before leaning in for a kiss, only to have Rin flinch away.

“…sorry.”

 

The prince sighed.

 

“Okay. I’ll clean you up, and we’ll lie down for a bit, and then you will tell me _exactly_ what happened to you. Sound good?”

 

"I—,” Rin started to object, only to be cut off by the prince.

  
“—have no right to deny myself my own story,” he completed the sentence, levelled Rin with a stare. “Isn’t it?”

  
And Rin could only nod wordlessly.

 

 

  
And so it began, with them lying together on Rin’s bed, watching the flutter of the early-evening moths around the light of the hanging lamp.

 

And so Rin talked.

“When I was a kid, it was my dream to become an Olympic swimmer,” Rin began, voice hoarse but steady, then, noting the prince’s confused expression, added, “the Olympics are about as big as you can get in a sports career— my dad passed away when I was a kid, and it had been his dream, so I took it upon myself because I loved swimming— _loved_ it.”

He took a deep breath, and continued. “So I went to Australia to train. I trained hard, of course, as hard as I could, but there was always something missing—I didn’t realise what it was until I came back to Japan a year or so later, for Christmas break. Until I was defeated by a guy who hadn’t even been training. It was _desperation_.”

 

He squeezed his eyes shut so he couldn’t see the play of emotion across the prince’d face at what was to come next.

 

"So I went back. I went back and trained _desperately_. All because of one guy—a guy I remember _fuck-all_ about. Not even his face. And to think we used to be best friends.”

He sighed, pausing for a bit. Steeling himself.

 

“Anyway, I got good. So good that I was scouted—that’s when people select you for teams—but then.”

He squeezed his eyes shut then, barely registering the soothing brush of the prince’s hand against his own, as his better self tried to choke down the words he’d never said to anyone before.

 

“But then, I met someone. She was beautiful and I was a little in love. We’d only been dating for a month or so when I found out she was into a lot of drugs—that’s like what you smoke in your hookah, but stronger. And what did I do?” A bitter laugh. “Did I turn right back around and tell her _no, thank you?_ You can guess the answer to that, but I went one step further. I got my best friend in the world into that shit.”

He choked back a sob. He kind of wanted to stop telling his whole downward spiral of a sorry story, but something in the recesses of him reminded him that the prince had been _right_. He had no right to lie to himself.

“And. Well. It was all just a fall from there, but none of us idiots noticed it, until one night it all came to a head. We were at her house, the three of us, all fucking drunk. Drunk and high and just all around _fucked_ , and he overdosed.”

There was no stopping the tears that cascaded down his cheeks then, no stopping the catch in his throat as he ploughed on, grimly determined to finish what he’d started.

"We could have saved him, Rin, if we'd got him to a hospital in time—that was what even the doctors said. But guess what?” He almost spat the words out, his chest now heaving with unshed tears, the taste of them unbearable vitriol on his tongue. “We were too busy fucking to notice or care.”

He hears the prince inhale sharply at that, but there’s no disgust, _not yet anyway._

“It was a shitstorm after that.” And fuck, he hates his voice for trembling. “I—I was kicked off the swim team. Everyone hated me. I was everyone’s poster child for what _not_ to do with their lives. Serves me right, I guess.”

His attempted nonchalance was somewhat shattered by the gulping sob he had to heave at the end. “Even my mother—she can’t stand the sight of me. They all hate me for ruining my life, for bringing shame to the family name, and they’re _right_. And I _still can’t stop.”_

And then the upsurge of tears because too much for him, and he _cried_ , cried perhaps like he never had before, and the prince let him, only rubbing his shoulder comfortingly through his paroxysm of guilt. And when his weeping had subsided into quiet sniffles, he kissed him, slow and soft and gentle, lips moving together lazily—

\--And then the door clicked open, and they jumped apart.

“H- _Haru_?” The prince’s voice was thin as a reed. “It’s not—we’re not like that—,”

“I only,” Haruka cut him off, voice like a flint of ice. “Wanted to tell Rin that I can read his emotions when I touch him in the water. That’s all.”

And with that, his frigid presence swept out the door as abruptly as it had come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE DON'T BE KIND TO ME. TELL ME EXACTLY WHAT IT IS.


	9. Cognizance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What, what is the absolute? Does it come in everyone's life, a single moment when the penny drops? Does one even exist?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY, OKAY, I KNOW. I haven't updated in forever. But college started and life happened. And I haven't abandoned Dream Merchant, not at all. In fact, I majorly edited and overhauled the story because I realized I didn't like the way I'd written it at all. So I strongly recommend you re-read the story before going on to this chapter. 
> 
> I'm sorry, enjoy the revamp, and tell me what you think!

 

 

Blue. Bitter. Painful. 

 

It was white noise in Rin’s head, then. The haze of all the time past, shot through with a mess of indigo and silver, carmine and gold, rearing up in one sure crest, solidifying around him until he could barely breathe _._ Until the dull throb in his body, the sharper ache in his chest bled out, somehow, into the background.

 

He belatedly registered the scuffle of sheets as the prince scrambled for clothing, the lift of the bed as he took off in pursuit of Haruka. 

 

He slumped. 

An overwhelming urge to let it all _go_ for a bit more, trace the patterns in the glimmers off the chandelier with his eyes and _not feel_ washed over him, seductive, willing him to yield. And he chased it. 

 

Glass shattered in the background, and Rin closed his eyes. Wanting the inky blankness to envelope him, to soothe at his hurts and just let him _be._

 

And night fell. 

 

 _Night visions_ fell into place.

 

And the plunge into their heady sensation knocked all the breath out of him. 

 

 

_the warmth of the prince’s touch_

 

_Rin_

 

_Haruka’s pale skin disappearing into swathes of argentine blue_

 

_Rin._

 

_crimson-gold-red heat_

 

_cool ultramarine detachment_

 

_Rin!_

 

 

His eyes flew open. 

 

“Car alarms and leaves that blow, they’re calling out our names…” 

 

He didn’t know why it came to him then, this obscure piece of poetry, but it did and felt like some haunting revelation in the static of the bubble that was his life. It hung in the air even as the blank of it supplied itself from somewhere in his memory. 

 

_But it’s gone too far, your butane mouth, will spit me into flames._

 

 

 

_…no…_

 

“Hmmmm?” 

 

 

 

 

_no it won’t_

 

 

 

 

Rin wasn’t sure which of him the gasp came from.

 

 

 

 

_because you’ll do your damnedest to fight it_

 

 

“…fight…” 

 

The word felt foreign on his tongue. The context felt foreign on his tongue.

 

 

_because how the fuck does it matter_

 

 

 

The thought hung heavy in the air. Rin considered, sighed in, then out. 

 

“Because what the fuck have I learned if not.” 

 

And then he _laughed._ Loud, reckless, he laughed. And he stood up, and walked right out the door behind the prince. 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

He found them not twenty paces away, in the next room, the prince looking a strange mix of livid and apprehensive, Haruka turned away from him, the set of his shoulders oozing tension. 

 

_“Agar tum apni khairiyat chahte ho, to yahan se dafa ho jaao.”_

 

The tone of his voice was no different from usual, but Rin stood rooted to the doorway in the face of it. The prince bristled like a threatened animal, but took a step forward. 

 

“ _Haru—”_

 

 

 

_“Isi waqt.”_

 

 

 

Water splattered across Rin’s face before the shattering sound struck a register, before he could remember to try and dodge the ceramic and glass that was suddenly raining down upon them. The prince let out what Rin could only assume was a loud curse, wiping at a cut on his cheek.

 

Haruka still hadn’t turned around, or moved a muscle, but Rin took a step back from the barely controlled menace of the energy that was flickering around him and the remains of what had once been a water urn. 

 

 

The silence between them seemed to grow heavier with each passing moment. 

 

 

“…Why…” 

 

 

It took Rin a moment to realize that the hushed whisper which had rent it apart came from him. 

And in that quiet, it was as if he’d screamed it. 

 

And then he began to laugh. 

 

Because maybe he was being absurdly stupid, absurdly naïve. Or maybe sometimes, it was _just that simple._ As simple as breaking a silence.

 

 

Haruka and the prince both flinched. Both turned towards him with gazes of equal intensity, and Rin’s laughter died in his throat, pinned underneath the weight of those stares. 

But then the prince walked towards him, and Haruka turned away. 

 

And even as the sure, warm pressure of an arm draped about his shoulders, something in his chest caught at the strangeness he’d seen in Haruki’s eyes in that fragment of a second.

 

 

_Because we always want the things we cannot have._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, translations:  
> “Agar tum apni khairiyat chahte ho, to yahan se dafa ho jaao.” - If you have a care for you well-being, get lost.
> 
> “Isi waqt.” - Right now. 
> 
> I'm sowwy this chapter is so short, but I do think it's important. In exchange, I promise to wow y'all with an AMAZING finale.


	10. Incunabulum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even Romeo and Juliet were doomed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL HELLO THERE. This, THIS is what it looks like when a story gets out of hand. This was supposed to be the last chapter, and look where we are now.

Somehow, Rin _knew_. Like he seemed to know so much now that he’d broken the silence.  
  
Just like he’d known to not go after Haruka when he’d rushed off in the aftermath of that confrontation, just like he’d known to press a gentle palm against the prince’s pounding heart after that, he knew, now. It was calling to him.

  
  
The oasis.

  
  
And it was up to Rin. _Up to him_ to answer the call of all things good and not.  
  
So, draped in little else but the velveteen cloak of night, he went. While the stars danced in prussian-blue embers, when a soporific lull had settled over the quiet of the kingdom, he traced the familiar path to the moon-shimmer off water.  
  


* * *

  
  
He’d never been there by moonlight before.

  
  
He didn’t think he could have actually _seen_ it before.

  
  
But now. _Now_.  
  
_Now_ it convinced Rin, once and for all, that magic existed. In this world at least, it existed in the mirror images he saw of the oasis; a simple medley of water against sand, of sun glinting off blue by day that turned into an enigma, an anomaly of undulating ink, purple, silver, noir, by night.

  
  
_One hundred million twinkle lights in neon blue._

  
  
And it existed in Haruka.  
  
Haruka, who sat there, at the edge of the oasis. Swathed in an almost unearthly silver light, animating swirls of water with the mere motion of his fingertips. Legs languid, a little bend at the knee where they stretched out before him, utterly oblivious to everything except the cadence of his precious water.

  
  
Rin just looked.

  
  
Haruka must have sensed the weight of his gaze on him, after a while, but he continued his little game with the water, fashioning it into ringlets, then letting it cascade back down in a shower of droplets.  
  
_Again and again and again._  
  
  
  
“What… are you doing?”  
  
When Rin spoke, finally, when it _felt right_ to speak, his voice came out softer than he’d ever heard it, making even the superficiality of the question sound uncomfortably intimate. Haruka jerked.  
  
  
“…I’m brewing dreams.”  
  
He answered just when Rin had begun to think he wouldn’t. And something in his voice tugged at him, enough for him to take the ten paces separating them and lower himself onto the wet sand beside him. Haruka disregarded Rin’s sudden movement, disharmonious in that silence as a wrong chord struck in a symphony, in favor of resuming his earlier actions.

  
But now that Rin was close enough to look, he _watched_ as Haruka’s long, graceful fingers stole the moonshine from the gentle waves he conjured up, just before they disintegrated in a deft flick of his wrist. As he disengaged the silvery tendrils clinging to his hands into a large, blue-ceramic bowl at his side. As he stirred them into swirling motion with a gesture of his hand.

  
  
Rin gasped softly when he caught a glimpse of what _it_ was, in the bowl.  
  
_Magnetic_ didn’t quite describe it. Something like _beautiful_ didn’t even begin to. Substantial but _not_ , fireshine and shadow, it looked like a million galaxies all drained out into one swirling essence that shone a different color in every other glint of light.

  
  
He couldn’t look away. He only realized he’d stretched his hand out when he felt the warmth of Haruka’s hand holding him back by his wrist.

  
  
“Don’t,” he warned, even as a full-body shudder coursed through Rin. “They get you drunk. Drunk like you’ve never been before, like you’ll never be again. One touch and you’ll be chasing that high for the rest of your life. But you’ll never get it after that first time.”

  
“A chasing drug, huh…” Rin couldn’t keep a trace of longing out of his voice. It seemed Haruka only waxed eloquent while talking about his dreams, though, because he made no reply to it, choosing instead to trail his fingers soft through the water that lapped at their legs.  
  
A beat passed in equanimity. Then,

  
  
“Oi.”

  
  
It took a moment for Rin to realize that Haruka had spoken. His voice somehow seemed to melt right into the stillness of the night, right into Rin’s instincts, like he’d heard it a million times before, even pitched as it was, an octave softer than usual. But now he’d turned towards Rin, looking him right in the eye, and there could be no mistaking it. Eyes blazing, he was deadly serious.

  
  
“I heard it,” something in his gaze made Rin want to look away, at the same time making him unable to do so. “In your voice, just now.”  
  
Rin could have shaken his head in mock-confusion. He could have asked what Haruka was talking about. But something in him could see Haruka’s consequent turnaway, the consequent death of the fragile equilibrium they’d built up. So he closed his eyes, because he _knew_ Haruka knew.

  
  
Knew, and despised.

  
  
_Even today._  
  
Why do you always fuck things up.

 __  
  
  
Rin stiffened when he felt a hand at his shoulder. “What the fuck do you know, Haru?”  
  
It came out as barely more than a bitter sigh of air.  
  
  
“I deal in dreams, Rin. I know withdrawal.”  
  
Rin had to bite back the urge to tell to tell Haruka that _he knew,_ he knew withdrawal too, it nearly killed him when he first came here; and he knew, too, that Haruka could see right through it. But the words were leaving him before he could suppress them.  
  
“So what’re you going to do? Tell me they’ll kill me? Ask me to stop?” he spat out his contempt. “Save it.”  
  
The crawling under his skin made Rin flippant, made him stare uncaring at Haruka. He pushed the thought of _what exactly_ he would do if Haruka actually left to the back of his mind.

  
  
“No, I’m not.”  
  
Haruka held Rin’s gaze. That look was back in his eye, the air between them suddenly heavy, suddenly _not enough._

  
  
“I’m just going to tell you this— your test is not in whether or not you want it. It is in whether you have the strength to fight that want.”

  
  
“ _Haru_ …” Rin would never get over how utterly riveting Haruka’s eyes were. How they glimmered bottomless, like sapphire ink, like endless nights all by themselves. How they said everything and frustrating _nothing_ all at once.

  
  
How there was never enough breathing room between the two of them.

  
  
How something told him there never had been, there never would be.

 

  
  
He didn’t even need to consider the veracity of Haruka’s words— it was staring him right in the face for once. And somehow, _somehow_ , the tranquility that had been the very character of this moonlight serenade was returning. After all that had happened, after Rin’s vehemence, after Haruka’s apathy, it was returning.

  
  
They were close, but it wasn’t terrifying any more that his body was so accustomed to the proximity, that it seemed to know more than his mind ever would— it felt natural as cleaving through the yield of water.

  
  
“Why, Haru?” his voice was barely above a murmur as he moved the hand supporting him the rest against Haruka’s side, turning his body. “Why are you telling me this, dream merchant? Why were you so angry when I had sex with Rin? Do you have an answer?”  
  
His free hand came up to trace patterns in wet sand against Haruka’s cheek. It was like he wasn’t _thinking_ any more, not fighting any more, just letting his body drift through the ataraxia of bottomless blue.  
  
Because in this life, it was up to him to pick his battles.

  
  
“…Because it felt right.”  
  
And somewhere in this fucked-up Universe, maybe, just maybe Haruka had caught on to Rin’s wavelength, maybe because he responded, maybe because he didn’t flinch away from the touch, from the questions brought with it.

  
  
He covered Rin’s hand on his cheek with his own.

  
  
And there, on a bleached-silver oasis shore, with Haruka’s skin almost as luminous as his eyes and Rin’s hands trembling violently, there their lips met, again and again with the lassitude of a calm death wish.  
  
And sure enough, when they parted, cheeks flushed and breath quickened, Rin felt the prickling at the back of his neck that could only mean one thing.

  
  
“Looks like I’m a bit late to the party,” the prince’s voice was drier than dry. “What’d I miss?”  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do believe this is called "oh motherfucker." XD 
> 
> As always, kudos and comments make me happy! Tell me how you guys want this to end.


	11. Kaeri

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can us selfish machines hold on to reason when everything crashes down?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, this is it. The last chapter before the epilogue. Whew, I can't believe that Dream Merchant is almost over. I've been with it for so long, at feels almost strange. 
> 
> Oh, well. I'll wait until the epilogue to wax lyrical XD 
> 
> Also, my advice to anyone who's planning on writing a threesome? DON'T. It is THE most frustrating thing I've ever written, and I just hope I've been able too do justice to it and to what everyone was expecting.

What should his reaction have been? 

 

When he’d first opened his eyes, shocked into his senses by Haruka’s dream. When he’d done the same in startle at the pressure of the prince’s lips on his own, and now. 

 

Now that his eyes fluttered open with the touch of Haruka’s lips lingering like cool water at his own, only half-real, with the heat of the prince’s gaze on the two of them, what was he to do? 

 

_What was he to do?_

 

_It was up to him to make or break this teetering moment, like it had been all those other times._

 

He looked at Haruka, words forming in his throat. He looked at the prince, and they died there. He couldn’t speak, for his face bereft him of all words.

 

 

He couldn’t speak, _but he had to think._

 

_Instinct and feeling were two different things, and he couldn’t let one guide the other._

 

_Reason, Desire, Restraint._

 

_And that was where thought came in._

 

 

He didn’t let his gaze linger on the prince’s expression. What was the point of trying to explain? 

 

“Rin.” 

 

He stretched out his hand.

 

“Come.”

 

 

The prince didn't reply, didn't say anything, didn't even move, and the silence that followed was such that he imagined he could sense the prince’s heavy breathing. 

 

He closed his eyes.

 

And then he heard the impact of sandalled feet on sand coming towards them, towards _him_. His skin thrilled in anticipation of the violence that would follow. Five seconds, six, and he could hear the rustle of the prince’s clothing. Seven and he could smell the musk of the oud he wore, coming closer, closer— 

 

And then the prince veered. 

 

Rin could feel in in the rush of air past him, hear it in the pivot of feet on wet sand. His eyes flew open in disbelief, but there it was. 

 

Instead of coming at him, the prince had gone for Haruka. Lunging at him, grabbing his chin hard enough to bruise. Rin tensed, hackles raising at the action. 

 

 _“Tum!”_ The prince was shouting, and Rin heard it in his voice, the desperate need to find some figment within him that was still _angry,_ could still _fight._ He’d heard it often enough in the same timbre. _“Batao hamein! Batao hamein ki yeh ghinaune jazbaat kahan se aae hain, ki hamein khud se… kyun… ishq…”_

 

His voice broke at the end, even as Rin’s head jerked. 

 

_Ishq._

 

That was a powerful word. 

 

And call it presumption at its most extreme, or simply connecting the dots, but Rin suddenly had a pretty good idea of what the prince was saying. 

 

“Rin…” his voice came out slow, halting. There was no way. “Are you… are you in love with me?” 

 

 _“No,”_ the prince’s reply, the look he directed at him, was immediate, savage. And then he looked at Haruka, face more open than Rin had ever seen it, the expression on it something he couldn't quite describe, something like hatred and wonder all at once. “ _Yeh tumne kya kiya, khwaabon ke saudagar?”_

 

And the quiet despair in his voice made something ache inside Rin’s chest, even when the only words he could ascertain were _what, done,_ and _dream._

 

 

He got the gist of it. 

 

 

But then the prince looked at him, eyes almost pleading. _“I don’t love you.”_

 

And then he turned to Haruka. _“Hamein kisi se ishq nahin hai.”_

 

He buried his head in his hands. 

 

Rin wanted to reach out to touch the prince. He wanted to touch the prince, run his hands through that glossy hair, stroke the burnished, coppertone cheek. He craved it. But something in him told him to wait, told him to sit this one out between the prince and Haruka. 

 

So he held himself back even as the prince raised his head to look between him and Haruka, expression growing increasingly wild. 

 

Even as the prince, a moment’s hesitation crossing his features, closed the scant distance between himself and Haruka in their triangle of sorts, and brought their mouths together almost fiercely. 

 

And even as his chest burned in the aftermath of it, he had to admire the split-second contrast of the moon illuminating the gold of the prince’s earrings and the bleached-silver of Haruka’s skin alike, catching on the little contrasts between them, this Oriental prince with opulence characterising every lilt and cadence of his manner and this wayfarer with little to his name except a dream. 

 

_Dressed in copper tones and lies_

 

Only for a split second, and then Haruka stiffened, and the next thing Rin knew was that he was reeling back in the face of the hugest wave he’d ever seen. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Haruka looked furious. _Furious_ with a ring of pure blue energy crackling around him. 

 

 _"Karna kya chah rahe the tum?”_ his eyes were flashing electric. _“Apne aap to samajhte kya ho?”_

 

 _“Hum Hindustan ke sultan hain,”_ the prince was drenched, but didn’t look apologetic, tossing his head in a phantom of his arrogance, shaking loose droplets of water. _“Aur hamein Rin se ishq nahin hai.”_

 

Instead of replying, Haruka looked straight at Rin. “He’s saying he doesn’t love you.” 

 

Rin’s head was foggy, thoughts askew, but he was sure it wasn’t just his instinct that belied the prince’s words, that had him striding forward to stroke a lazy hand across the prince's cheek, who couldn't hide his full-body shudder even as he recoiled. 

 

“Really now,” and _fuck,_ Rin was getting some sort of kick out of this, out of this newfound sensation of power which he’d always craved and never had. And the fact that he had it over the prince, over _himself_ always so utterly in control, made it even better. “Because I think…,” he yanked the prince to him by his necklace, their chests flush against each other, “you’re,” their faces were inches apart “ _lying.”_

 

 

And he melded their mouths together. 

 

Because his past would stay with him. Always, it would be by his side. 

 

But it was up to him to realise that that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, what he'd learned from it. 

 

And up to him to forget the regret associated with it.

 

 

Up to him to fall in love, up to him to be happy. 

 

And it was well worth it for the way the prince _folded_ against him after a while, for his gasp when Rin pulled away, just barely, to whisper in his ear. 

 

“Because I love you too, Rin. I love what I have become, and I love what I could've been.” 

 

The prince didn't say anything, just trembled beneath the weight of the words. And then Rin met Haruka’s gaze, which had settled on them with a kind of weighted anticipation. 

 

“And I love Haru. I don't know how or why, but I do.” 

 

Haruka’s eyes widened. The prince whimpered. And Rin offered his other hand to Haruka. 

 

“The two of you have always fascinated me.” Haruka said, almost grudgingly. “I have been… jealous, almost. Of having somebody like that, who understands and accepts everything of mine.” 

 

He took a step towards them. “Until I saw the two of you that day, I hadn't realised that I didn't know who I was jealous of. Of you, prince, for having the one I could feel most deeply in the water, or of you, Rin, for having the one who could rouse passion I didn't know I had.” 

 

He began walking, then, closer and closer, and a knot squeezed tight within Rin. “I have known you for ages, Rin. And you, prince, I don't know at all.” 

 

His tone made the antithesis sound like he meant it only one way. 

 

And maybe he did, because they were close, _close_ now and there was only one place this was going. 

 

It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

 

His eyes fluttered shut with calm acceptance of it as Haruka’s lips descended on his own. As, in a split second, they were joined by another pair. He opened his mouth on a sigh and found it occupied by a tongue, and suddenly all he knew was _warm_ and _wet_ and wandering hands. Occasionally, he felt the prince’s pointed teeth graze his lip, Haruka’s nimble fingers at his nape, and he relaxed into it. 

 

_He accepted it._

 

Soon, though, they broke apart in a mess of teeth and tongue and mingling air, and Rin threw his head back in a breathy, exhilarated laugh, like this had been the foregone conclusion to this entire mess of a story. “What did we even just do?”

 

The only answers to his rhetoric were wet sounds as Haruka reached for the prince, bringing them both to their knees in the sand as they kissed. 

 

Rin just watched in fascination. It was rougher, somehow, with them. Freer, Haruka knocking off the prince’s turban to reveal his halo of carmine hair. Rin couldn't describe the play of it as the prince fisted his hands in Haruka’s hair in retaliation, _tugged_. He only knew that when Haruka’s head snapped back and his eyes found Rin with the same fire in them he'd only ever seen while racing him in the water, that he had to walk over and claim that mouth for his own.

 

And so he did. 

 

He took the three steps to them and bent to run his hands through the prince’s hair before finding Haruka’s mouth over his shoulder, hands coming up to flick at the prince’s nipples. Prince-Rin keened, high in his throat, hands coming up as if to halt Rin’s advances, but falling limp at his sides when Rin left off from Haruka’s kiss to suck a dark-edged bruise into  the side of his neck. 

 

“Nnnnn… don't—,” the prince gasped out even as his hands grasped tight onto Rin’s own. 

 

“Shut up,” Rin breathed against the prince’s neck. Then, looking at Haruka, “and kiss him.”

 

Haruka glowered at Rin, but did not resist when the prince sought out his lips, closing his eyes and sinking into the kiss, arms wrapping around the prince’s neck, grazing Rin’s chest and making it flush with heat as he admired the length of Haruka’s sooty lashes, stark against the paleness of his skin. 

 

Rin’s hands trailed down the prince’s body, eyes fixed on the scene before him as he lazily mouthed at the prince’s ear, whispering low into it. 

 

“Do you want me to fuck you now, hmm? Like you fucked me last time? Or do you want Haru to do it?” 

 

He unfastened the prince’s sirwal, palming hard between his legs so that he arched up, breaking the kiss in a moan as Rin continued murmuring filth into his ear, pressing the stirring in his own groin up against the curve of the prince’s ass. 

 

“Or do you want the both of us? Both of us, fucking you at once, making a mess out of you? You’re _fucking greedy.”_

 

Though the words were directed at the prince, Rin looked dead into Haruka’s eyes as he said them. A moment of wordless communication between them, and then the prince almost sobbed as both their hands simultaneously closed around his cock and started stroking in tandem, Rin’s mouth nipping at his earlobe, playing with the earrings there. 

 

"But that'd be too much for you, don't you think, baby? Let’s switch positions.”

 

Abruptly, he stood, the prince faltering a little at the sudden lack of support, and went over to take up position behind Haruka, who tensed just the tiniest bit. From here, he could suddenly see his own expression mirrored in the prince’s lust-clouded eyes, see how _gone_ he looked already, and he couldn’t help but press a biting kiss to the prince’s mouth before he smirked. 

 

“Let’s show him how we do it, shall we?” 

 

And it was like a switch flipped inside the prince at the loss of Rin holding him up, at his words now, because his eyes cleared, just a bit, and he returned Rin’s smirk before shifting to settle firmly on Haruka’s lap, dislodging the hand still around his cock.

 

“Oi, what’re you—,” Haruka’s resultant objection was silenced by Rin, who, with a hand at his cheek, gently turned his head to occupy his lips with his own while the prince bent to mouth at his nipples. Rin couldn’t help but smile at the tiny gasps he let out whenever, he assumed, the prince used teeth. It was good like this, the slow burn of arousal in his belly, the soft press of Haruka’s lips on his own, until— 

 

“Ahhhhhnnnn—!” 

 

Haruka broke the kiss, throwing his head back in a moan, the loudest Rin had ever heard him be. It took a moment for him to figure it out, but when he heard the rustle of fabrics, when he saw the prince’s face, he realised that he was grinding down hard into Haruka’s lap. 

 

And Rin knew firsthand how _sinful_ those hips were. 

 

Fuck, the rhythm of their bodies was pushing Haruka’s ass against his cock, and if he hadn’t been hard before, he was, _was_ now. The noises they were making, the friction, it was all getting to him, making it harder and harder to think straight.

 

He muffled a moan into a sharp bite to the slope of Haruka’s shoulder. They were all wearing _too many fucking clothes._

 

With fumbling fingers, he made short work of his own clothing, tossing it uncaring to the side. The prince’s already unfastened sirwal was half-off as he grinded down against the very prominent bulge in Haruka’s with a speed and assiduity that could only mean his release was upon him, and fast. 

 

“Make him come,” Rin whispered into Haruka’s ear, making him shudder, his quiet, breathy moans increasing in pitch as Rin trailed a hand down his body to stroke at the base of his cock, the only part he could reach. “And get your clothes off.” 

 

It seemed Haruka didn’t need the injunction, though, because his hands were already coming up to pinch at the prince’s nipples, him getting louder and louder as he sought the friction of Haruka’s chest against his leaking cock, grinding down hard enough to make Haruka’s head jerk back to rest against Rin’s shoulder as he moaned low in his throat.

 

 

“Please, prince, I’m— _nnnnngh—,”_

Haruka came before the prince did, arching and shuddering against Rin’s chest before going limp. The prince didn’t let up any, continuing at his furious pace, milking Haruka’s orgasm until he cried out from oversensitivity. 

 

Maybe the prince was a little bit of a sadist, too, or maybe it was just that Haruka’s cry of _too much prince no_ was just so ungodly _hot,_ but that was all it took for the prince to come in a string of curses, white splattering his chest and Haruka’s. 

 

It took a moment for them to regain their breath, panting as they came down from their highs. Rin granted them that, giving a few seconds pause before he lunged for Haruka, kissing him slow and deep and _desperate_ , almost. Stroking his cheek with one hand. Undoing his sirwal with the other. When his fingers touched the stickiness of come, he scooped it up, meaning to feed Haruka his own essence, but the prince beat him to it, engulfing his fingers in his mouth and sucking off every last drop. 

 

“Fuck, you really want to make sure I can't hold back any more, don't you?” Rin groaned, tearing his mouth away from Haruka’s to watch the erotic display before him, watch transfixed as the prince kept at his fingers, coating them in his saliva, hollowing his cheeks out the way he would do if those fingers were replaced by a dick. 

 

When the prince left off with a lewd pop, Rin was harder than he’d ever been. 

 

Red tingeing the edges of his vision, he opened Haruka’s legs as the prince claimed his mouth, pushing him onto his hands and knees and nudging a spit-slick finger at his entrance, making his back curve obscenely, his eyes screw shut as he panted. 

 

"Shhhhhh love…,” he kissed at the back of his neck as he inserted a finger. Slow, sensual, crooking it, drawing out a delicious gasp while the prince thumbed at his nipple, mouthed at the head of his cock. One finger became two, then three as Haruka writhed underneath their combined ministrations. "Does it feel good, babe? God, _you're_ the beautiful one, so beautiful like this.”

 

Haruka buried his face in his arms, mumbling something incoherent that dissolved into a moan as Rin curled his fingers _just right,_ as the prince closed his mouth around his cock and _sucked_. 

 

“Hmmmm?” looping his arm under both of Haruka’s, Rin hoisted him up onto his knees, to piston his fingers in deeper, make him cry out more. “Didn't hear that, sorry.” 

 

“I _said_ ,” and Haruka craned his neck around to look him in the eye, a flush running high on his cheeks, eyes hazy and hair mussed, the picture of debauchery. “ _Just fuck me already.”_

 

Rin could barely nod shakily before he was being knocked backwards with the force of the prince’s body against his, before his hair was being tugged roughly and his breath stolen by the prince’s mouth. 

 

"And what about me, huh? You basta— _nnngh,”_ it was only when the prince’s voice broke on a moan that Rin realised he had four fingers shoved inside himself and was pumping them in and out furiously. 

 

“Allow me, prince.”

 

And suddenly Haruka was there, behind them, eyes blown wide and dark and turning the prince towards himself with a sure grip at his shoulder. Rin caught a split-second eyeful of the delectable sight that was the prince’s fingers inside himself before Haruka was yanking them out with a lewd squelch and a breathy whimper from the prince. Replacing them with himself in one sinuous stroke. 

 

“Fuck, _fuck_ , Haru— _ahhh_!” 

 

The prince's arms came to wrap around Haruka and it seemed that all Rin could do was _watch_ the sinuous rhythm of their bodies like dancers in some sensuous musical, _listen_ to the slick slide of the choppy thrusts that made them moan in some strange sort of synchronicity.

 

Until Haruka opened his eyes. Looked right at Rin. 

 

 

And Rin’s restraint, every figment of it, _shattered_. 

 

 

He didn't think he'd ever bridged a gap so fast before, pushing Haruka onto all fours again so that the prince’s back made hard contact with the ground, plunging four fingers inside him to reaffirm the burn of the stretch, scissoring them in a cursory motion before pulling them out. 

 

“Gonna make love to you now, babe,” he murmured in Haruka’s ear, who just nodded jerkily, bringing his moments of thrusting in and out of the prince to a halt so Rin could spread his cheeks, so he could bite out a curse into the nape of his neck as he slid in, inch by scorching inch. 

 

Fuck, he thought Haruka said something then, something an octave higher than his usual pitch, something high and broken and needy, but it was quickly drowned out in the roaring inside his head at the tight tighttight _tight_ heat suddenly enveloping his cock, and it took every shred of willpower he had to not come right then and there. 

He took a minute, composed himself by murmuring nonsensical words into Haruka’s shoulder, biting at the prince’s bottom lip when he could have at it, and then he rocked his hips forward, tentative.

 

The reaction was immediate. 

 

Haruka threw his head back at the stretch, keening brokenly. The prince let loose a litany of curses when the movement caused him to jerk inside him and looked at Rin with hazy eyes. 

 

“Rin… what are you doing to us?” 

 

And what reply could he give to that, really? He didn't _know_. He didn't know what this place had done to him, what he had done to this place, but it was sure as hell nothing that could ever be contained in the inadequacy of words. The prince's tone pulled at something inside him, and the only way he could let it out was through the increased intensity of his thrusts as they sought to establish a rhythm, through the heat of the open-mouthed kisses he shared with the prince over Haruka’s shoulder. 

He was panting now, his head spinning with desire and the need to claim, to own, to _mark_. The pace was turning dizzyingly fast, the rhythm they'd found, brutal, and the only thing Rin knew any more was that he needed to _come_ , that he was _not_ going to last.

 

And suddenly he slowed. 

 

“Rinnnn… why…….” 

 

Haruka's resultant whimper was almost enough to fray what remained of his resolve, but he gritted his teeth and bit out a reply as he grinded in deep for good measure. The intensity of it making all three of them moan.

 

"Don't… want to end it… like this. Wanna feel you both… from the inside.” 

 

And then he manoeuvred Haruka’s head to the side so he could kiss him slow and deep in tandem with their fucking. 

 

They continued like that, tongues entwining like the slow burn of a charcoal fire, until Rin’s attention was recalled from that heated place inside his mind by a sharp bite to his shoulder. 

 

"You should have warned me you fucked like a geriatric. I would've brought— _nnn_ — a concubine.” 

 

The prince’s breath was catching in his throat from the amplified pressure of each thrust, his cock heavy with blood between his legs, but he was looking at Rin with that old, familiar arrogance burning behind his eyes. 

 

He was _fucking provoking him._  

 

And it would be childish to rise to the bait, absolutely _puerile—_

 

 _“Yeah?”_ he snapped his hips on the word, then. _Hard_. “I--don't— _fucking_ —think—so.” 

 

He punctuated every word with a thrust, back to his old rhythm, some more animalistic version of it, faster, _faster_ —

 

“Tell me you fucking love me.” 

 

He didn't know what possessed him to say it, didn't even know he wanted to hear those words from the prince, but there they were, out even as he licked at Haruka’s neck, tugged at his nipple, all the while looking the prince dead in the eye. 

 

“…No…,” tears had started to glisten in the prince's eyes, his head to thrash from side to side under the overwhelming stimulation, but he still held fast to his stubborn stance. “I don't— _fuck,”_ a particularly sharp thrust, “love— _ah_ —love you… Rin…” 

 

And there it was again, that pleading look, that _no_ which also sounded a lot more like _yes_ , and Rin didn't know how he should respond, how he should even begin to give Rin what he was asking for; except by wrapping a hand around his cock and stroking once, twice, until the tears forming at the corners of his eyes dripped down the sides of his face into his hair, until his back arched into a curve that had to have been painful as he came hard and hot between himself and Haruka, nails scratching his back bloody. 

 

Until he forgot his own _name_ , let alone what he'd been asking for. 

 

The prince's orgasm had him clenching feverishly around Haruka, if Rin could ascertain anything from the spasms which shuddered through his body and the sudden break in the rhythm of his thrusts and— _fuck_ , the sudden tightening of his own walls that had Rin close, _too close_. 

 

He didn't know which one of them came first, his head so fogged with lust that it was all he could do to keep the cresting waves of his orgasm at bay, powerless to stop them when they finally crashed down over him. He vaguely registered low, desperate moans that seemed to come from him, but all he really knew after that was his vision flashing red and black, his hips pistoning into Haruka on autopilot, and the coil of heat in his belly squeezing tighter and tighter before finally exploding in white-hot pulses. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

His head cleared to the gritty feeling of sand sticking to the side of his face, to the silken touch of cloth at his waist, and to Haruka and the prince standing over him, talking in Urdu too low for him to catch. He just let his eyes flutter shut again, revelling in the moonshine on his skin, the soothing register of their voices. But he couldn't hide forever, not from the big things and not from the small, so, after a moment, he just opened them. 

 

“Hi,” he smiled sleepily, blinking up at them. "What're you talking about?" 

 

“…The skies have cleared,” Haruka looked at him, surprised even, expression strange. “The fates have acquiesced. I meant to tell you earlier, but I got… distracted.”

 

He blushed, and Rin really shouldn't have found it as cute as he did. It took a moment for him to fully register what he'd said, and when he did, it didn't make any more sense than before. 

 

“Okay,” he said, slowly. “And that means…?” 

 

“It means you're going home,” the prince cut in, expression bitter for a moment before he seemed to get a hold of himself. “Because the blockage between our worlds has cleared.” 

 

For a moment, Rin’s world closed in around him, vision tunnelling. Seemed to teeter on one end, and he clenched his eyes shut. 

 

_You're going back_

 

_You'll never see them again_

 

_You'll never—_

 

He flinched at a touch to his arm, eyes flying open. It took a moment for him to realise it was the prince, hesitation written all over his features. He didn't say anything, just determinedly kept his hand at Rin's arm. 

 

And Rin had to smile. Despite the ache in his chest, the throb in his head, he had to smile. 

 

Because he knew, he had always known somewhere inside him that this wasn't permanent. And the best he could hope for was that it'd been worthwhile. 

 

And if he'd learned _any fucking thing_ from this, it was that if, in another life, he was capable of running a kingdom, then he was fucking capable of solving his shitstorm of problems in this one. 

 

_And so?_

 

“I accept it.” 

 

The words were slow, the words were agonising to say, but there they were. And they were necessary. 

 

And then there was another touch, at his shoulder this time, so faint he hardly noticed but for Haruka brushing past him. 

 

"Meet me in my chamber, the both of you." 

 

 

 

* * *

  

 

 

Rin's farewell ceremony was small. The already huge ceremonial hall seemed cavernous when it was only occupied by six people.

He hadn't wanted one in the first place, preferring to slip away unbeknownst under cover of the night, but _I'll be damned if you leave without a proper goodbye_ the prince had said, and so here they were. Makoto, Nagisa, Rei, Haruka, the prince, and himself, the only six occupants of a hall meant for six hundred. 

 

While Haruka prepared the altar, chanted spells that made it glow unearthly blue-green, the rest of them talked, and Rin used the guise to look his fill at their faces, the ones which had grown irreplaceable to him over the short few months he'd spent with them, commit them to memory.  

 

And they talked. 

 

Cabbages and kings and shooting stars, everything under the sun while the prince translated. They talked like old friends, the five of them. Like it was nothing but that. Like Rin’s imminent departure was not an overbearing cloud over all of them.

It was not until the actual moment came, until Haruka wordlessly beckoned Rin forward onto the altar, that he found his hand grabbed with Nagisa’s cry of _no Rin don't go_ —in perfect Japanese, for once. That he spun towards them in confusion and found himself pulled into a group hug. 

 

His heart constricted in his chest, a sharp pain when the solidity of arms around him left off and the prince squeezed his hand tight, leading him to the altar. As he looked back, one last time, at Nagisa’s open tears, at Makoto’s faltering smile, at Rei looking away. 

 

And now he was there. Not much, a simple, flower-adorned deity and a bowl of water on a platform encircled by symbols done in charcoal. Carved from the simplest wood and yet holding the same quiet, ancient power that Haruka radiated.

A look passed between the three of them. Rin, Haru, Rin. Their goodbyes had been said the night before, but it didn't in any way ease the tightness in his chest, the burning behind his eyes, and—

 

“ _Rin,”_ the word rushed from him like a prayer. “Come with me, I can't do this alone—,” 

 

“ _No,”_ the vehemence in his words took Rin aback. “You have to. I can't leave my kingdom. _”_

 

“Don't make this any harder than it is. _I can't leave my kingdom._ ” And the prince looked like he was about to cry, like he _was_ crying as he brought his hands up to either side of Rin’s face, holding tight. “ _Promise me you'll be strong.”_

 

"I—,” Rin wanted to say it, wanted to breathe out a reassuring _yes, yes Rin_. But the words stuck in his throat, and the prince half looked like he wanted to slap him again, eyes burning fire. 

 

But then he left off, and looked at Haruka instead, gaze urgent. 

 

“ _Haru, hamare pas ab koi rasta nahin hai!”_

 

Haruka just nodded. Rin looking between the two of them in confusion. 

 

"Give me your hand," the prince's attention was back on him now, fingers skating down his body to grab at them, and really, Rin had always been weak to that imperious tone, complying wordlessly. 

 

But now the prince was holding their hands out before Haruka, and he was muttering words which were not words at all and instead sensations that flowed into his skin with every incantation and made it seem suddenly cold all over. And Rin stood rooted to the spot in wonder, unable to pull away, unable to want to. 

 

And then it was over. 

 

The eerie light enveloping their joined hands faded, and the coolness receded from his body, leaving it tingling. He let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. 

“What did you do?” 

 

"Something you can't undo.” 

 

Did the prince look almost _happy_? As he motioned Haruka forward, was he _smiling_? 

 

Haruka grabbed Rin’s hand, and before he could react, made a shallow cut in his forearm with the dagger at his waist. 

 

“The _fuck?”_ Rin snatched his hand back, hissed. 

 

And the prince did the same. 

 

“Fuck, cut a little deeper, I don’t think I quite felt that,” he snarked, inspecting the gash on _his_ forearm. 

 

In the exact same place as Rin’s. 

 

“...You _didn't_.”

 

Rin could hardly believe it, could hardly get a handle on what he was suddenly feeling, an uncontrollable, wild rush that made him want to laugh hysterically, to cry, to kiss the prince. His heart felt curiously light, the pit of his stomach sick with dread, and it was as if he'd explode in the contradiction of it. Fuck, he didn't know what to do, so he hugged the prince, hugged Haruka, tight as he could, breathing out into their hair. “You _idiots_. You _dumb fucking idiots.”_  

 

“If you ever get stupid ideas again, we’ll know.” Haruka told him when they broke apart. “So don't.” 

 

And then things were happening fast, fast, too fast, with the prince stepping back, Haruka’s chanting getting louder, the world around him starting to blur and spin. He was distantly aware of crying out the prince's name  

 

And Rin was suddenly afraid. _So afraid_ , heart beating a mile a minute and _fuck_ logic. Fuck thought. Fuck thought because what good would it do when your world was slipping away from you and you needed to to hold on to something? When that was what every instinct was telling you to do?

 

So he reached a hand out, and he grabbed at anything he could. And when his world faded to black yet again, the old words echoed around his grip on a hand. 

 

_There were three brothers._

 

 _One died drunk in power._  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more chapter to go! What do you think will happen?


	12. Recursion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aren't struggle and acceptance just two veins of the same, beautiful poem?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh. My god. 
> 
> So.
> 
> This story is over. 
> 
> Honestly? I don't even know what to say here. Just. Thank you? Everyone who read, commented, left kudos. Thank you. It's such a weird feeling, not constantly thinking of this story and relating everything to it is going to be… strange. This is actually the longest story I've ever written, and I actually dealt with some of my personal issues in this form. It has been both enriching and therapeutic, and, of course, one hell of a ride. I started this story with no idea of where it was going, and it forced me to think deeply about life, relationships, and their meanings on many levels.
> 
> That said, you've definitely not heard the end of me yet. I've got a half-finished songfic up in my drafts, and I promise I'll finish it one of these days.

_Come, come whoever you are_

_Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving—_

_it does not matter._

_Ours is not a caravan of despair_

_come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times_

_come, come again_

_come_

_for death is our wedding with eternity._

 

For a moment, Rin thought he was dead and his life was flashing before him on a reel. Flashing before his eyes even when he clenched them shut tight and the only thing grounding him was his death-grip on a hand, as wind whipped his hair around his face and the pit of his stomach swooped as if from a sheer drop. He thought he screamed, _tried_ to scream, but any and all sound was drowned out by the murmuring of a million and one voices, of _every voice he’d ever heard._

 

And then it was over. 

 

Then it was over, and his knees buckle on something hard, the stench of puke and decay filling his head as his vision swam into focus. 

 

“Ow…,” he muttered, shaking his head to clear it, disengaging his hand to cover his nose—

 

_Wait._

 

“…Rin.” 

 

And Rin didn’t know how he looked then, but he was sure all the color drained out of his face as his body flashed hot and cold and hot again. As if in slow motion, he turned. 

 

 

And Haruka lay prostrate beside him, pale, limp, wrist bruising. 

 

 

For a moment, Rin’s lips formed around Haruka’s name, horror catching in his throat, heart fluttering in some strange, potent cocktail or adrenaline and— dare he say it?— wide-eyed _elation._

 

_Haruka was his._

 

 _His_ forever. 

 

But— _fuck—_ then what was to live and let go? 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 Rin’s head was in his arms when he came to, pulse rate spiking as everything came back to him after a second of blissful oblivion. He only realized that the smell in the apartment was suspiciously absent when he blinked up at the sunlight streaming in through the now-open windows, rubbing at the grit in his eyes. 

 

_Right._

 

 _“…_ Haru?”

 

“Rin.” 

 

And Haruka came into his field of vision, ethereal as mist in his sirwal with strips of midnight fluttering in the breaths of breeze like a lost little ghost town in the midst of Rin’s world of reality. 

 

_He didn’t belong there._

 

But, well, and damn him, _damn it all_ for the trembling euphoria that left his thoughts windswept, forced a bubble of hysterical laughter past his lips, elated and contingent and anguished all at once. 

 

“Home sweet home.”

 

And then he laughed, or maybe he cried, the precipice between the two hopelessly blurred in the space where it didn’t matter any more. And when his shoulders stopped shaking, when the curl of his lip faded, it was all he could do all he could do to sigh. 

 

“What’re we going to do, Haru?” Almost without knowing what he did, Rin reached out to touch Haruka, try and bridge some of that which could not be bridged. 

 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Haruka caught Rin’s hand in midair, intertwining their fingers. “We’re going to settle.” 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  _Come to the orchard in spring._

 

_There is light and wine, and sweethearts in the pomegranate flowers. If you do not come, these do not matter. If you do come, these do not matter._

 

And they settled. 

 

It was blue, it was bitter, and it was painful, but they settled. Even as the shadow of the prince hung heavy over them like the burn from a phantom limb, they settled. 

 

But what was it that chafed at the back of Rin’s subconscious even as he made the first, hesitant call to his mother, hand in Haruka’s? As the calm of ultramarine eyes, a downturned mouth soothed at his tears through the rout of the memories better committed to oblivion? Even as routine fell into place, almost without him noticing it? College, work, home, but Haruka was fading. 

 

His appetite was failing, skin blanching to near-translucence, and Rin was _afraid._

 

Afraid that the bird-fragile of Haruka’s would break, shatter into a million irrecoverable pieces even as Rin held him tight, tight enough to bruise as they made love, trying to memorize the feel of him inside himself, _on_ himself, even clinging to him in the aftermath. 

 

But slow and sure, the feeling settled leaden in his gut. 

 

_Despair._

 

The crying at night, the nightmares of Rin, _Rin_ that painted all his dreams a brilliant crimson-carmine. 

 

Love, and hate, and nothing in between. 

 

And through it all, he knew _._

 

Knew it would happen when Haruka took his face in his hands, kissed his eyelids. 

 

Said, _this will be the last time._

 

He _knew,_ he told himself, he had always known. 

 

But it didn’t stop him from pressing Haruka closer to himself, from moving deeper inside him as if to imprint the shape of himself within that body which looked fluctuant as a stray gust of wind. 

 

Because he knew, but he didn’t _understand._

 

 _“Why?”_ the whisper left him with his tears, overflowing into Haruka’s hair. _“Why can’t I keep you?”_

 

“Because it was never meant to be.” 

 

And although that was his answer, in all its simplicity, his arms wrapped just that little bit tighter around Rin. 

 

Understanding would come with time. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 “…And this is really rare, so there hasn’t been much documented evidence of it happening, but when a spirit crosses over from another world without their planet of their sign being in the correct orbit, the new world rejects them, and they gradually fade away.” 

 

It was long past dusk, now, the moon a lazy, milky orb low in the sky, and the room was heavy with the mingled scent of the two of them. Rin could distantly feel Haruka’s fingers thread lightly through his hair, fashioning nonsensical little braids as he talked, uncharacteristically verbose. Rin shifted his head from its position on Haruka’s chest to try and peer into his face as guilt stabbed through him. 

 

“What happen to them? The spirits who fade away?” 

 

Haruka, noticing Rin’s gaze, tilted up one corner of his mouth into a humorless smile. 

 

“Who knows,” then, seeing Rin’s expression, amended his statement. “My guess is that they eventually reappear where they belong.”

 

Rin closed his eyes. 

 

“I’m so fucking selfish.” 

 

Haruka’s hands continued their path through his hair, never faltering. “Go to sleep.”

 

“Will you be there when I wake up?” 

 

When Rin looked at Haruka again, his expression hadn’t changed. He still wore that half-smile as he moved his hands to cover Rin’s eyes, gently closing them. A feeling of intense drowsiness suddenly flowed through him from the point of contact, and he found he didn’t even have the energy to curse Haruka out for using magic on him.

 

_He'll be the death of you._

 

Something soft brushed against his lips before he heard Haruka’s voice in his ear. 

 

“Go to sleep, Rin.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Predictably, the bed was empty when he woke up. 

 

_The second died for love._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 Despair, guilt, loneliness. And a slowly simmering rage. 

 

Emotions too multitudinous, too painfully complex to be summed up in Plutchik’s bullshit theory of there being only eight basic ones came flooding through him, wave after wave as he huddled in bed, something fresh stabbing at him when he noticed that Haruka’s weight had left hardly an impression on the sheets. 

 

He closed his eyes, and for a long, long time, there was nothing. 

 

Nothing but sleep and pain, and the times in between when his body screamed for attention. 

 

He’s lost Haruka. He’d lost Rin. He’d even lost the ability to wreak a ravaging trail of emotion over his own skin, drive his fist into any breakable object and savor the resultant sting, because his trembling hands froze over every time he pictured the identical pattern that would carve itself out over the prince’s unmarred body. 

 

 

 

 

_But you’ve gained something else, haven’t you?_

 

 

 

 

It was hollow, but there was something there, sparking dully at the back of his mind. Something that had started an age ago in a different world with his epiphany that he could _fight._ It was also something he’d learned when he’d forcibly dragged Haruka into a world in which he didn’t belong, when the consequences of it had played out before his eyes. 

 

It was that life was some combination of these two, of struggle and acceptance, and

 

_somewhere beyond right and wrong is a garden where I will meet you._

 

 

And so he rose. 

 

It took time, it took a few failed attempts when he felt like the emptiness would gnaw apart his insides, when every bit of his Desire was screaming at him not to, when it felt like he would fall right back down again the moment he tried.

 

But he rose.

 

He rose, and with determined steps, he walked to the shower. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 And slowly, ever so slowly, things fell into place, into an empty sequence of days. What the body’s defense mechanisms couldn’t heal, time would.

 

_Time would heal._

 

Sometimes Rin felt like it was the only thought buoying him through days and nights of splintered glass. That, and— foreign as it was to his thought process— he didn’t have to go through it without distractions. 

 

And, for once, he didn’t mean those of the pernicious kind. 

 

Because he’d all but forgotten this, but people existed. People existed who wanted nothing more than normal, wholesome friendship from him even through his glassy-eyed stare, and, somewhat to his own horror, he found himself accepting when they asked him out to karaoke for the nth time. 

 

_Little by little._

 

And maybe it was this, between home-cooked _soba_ and study groups, between his long sleeves and their good-natured teasing, somewhere between despair and disillusionment, he found himself smiling. Furtively at first, and then out in the open. 

 

_Little by little._

 

And maybe it _was_ this which prompted him to along with the others when they raved about the new seafood place near college, prompted him to stay with them until closing time, until the chef came to shoo them out.

 

Until he got a good look and his world came to a standstill. 

 

A million and one memories, all stained some shade of blue, came rearing up within him with the force of a tidal wave, expressed only in the sudden, wild trembling of his hands and the almost-sigh that it expelled from his lips. 

 

_The third greeted Death as an old friend._

 

_“…Haru.”_

 

And the prince? He would always stay by his side. Rin only had to look for the presumably accidental cuts that appeared on his body from time to time to know that the bond worked both ways. 

 

_Things did, indeed, come full circle._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea. Is this even a happy ending?!?!?!111 
> 
> I tried.
> 
> Also. All the quotes in this chapter are from my favorite poet, Rumi.

**Author's Note:**

> So, here are the refs.
> 
> The first quote, 
> 
> How odd to be thinking about saving your life and about preparing for your funeral at the same time. Maybe that was what everyone was doing.  
> is from a book called Hitler's Canary, by Sandi Toksvig. It is a pretty childish book, but I do like this quote.  
> The other one, And God said, "Let there be light," 
> 
> and there was light.  
> is, of course, from the Bible. I'm personally an atheist, but I think it's important to at least have a basic knowledge of religion. 
> 
> ALSO IF ANYONE UNDERSTOOD THE ALTERNATE-FANDOM REFERENCES I WILL BAKE YOU A MUFFIN.


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